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 Monday, February 20, 2006
Security Disconnect. by Larry C Johnson (bio below) Will someone please help the White House figure out which security playbook it should be using? In recent weeks the President's men have stronged arm Republicans to look the other way and not investigate whether George Bush has violated the law by authorizing domestic spying that ignored legal requirements to seek court approval. Those who have dared to challenge the Administration on this point have been accused of letting Al Qaeda have free run inside the United States. Well, what about allowing a Middle... [Booman Tribune]
Yep. This Admininstration is approving the oversight of several of our ports by a company from a Middle Eastern country, one that has had several complications dealing with terrorists, transport of nuclear materials, etc. Why in the world are they allowing port security to be run by a foreign company? I guess someone will have to follow the money. I hope they do before our unsecured ports are harmed.
And as detailed at Think Progress they will not only control the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia. They will also control military transports through the ports of Corpus Christi and Beaumont. Forty percent of all the Army cargo deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom came through those 2 ports. And they will all be under the control of a foreign company. Nice. 11:01:13 PM 
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See if this sounds familiar..... Last month I blogged about the Newsweek story on the rebellion of politically-appointed Justice Department lawyers against the Dick Cheney/David Addington approach of how to run the war on terror and the executive branch. I got a powerful whiff of... [Daniel W. Drezner]
It appears that almost every government lawyer with a conscience was vocal in their disapproval of the techniques espoused by Cheney and Ashcroft. And this Admininstration ignored every one. 10:48:22 PM
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Did mutual aid in a hostile environment drive human evolution?. BBC reports on research that mutual protection against predators may have driven the evolution of human cooperation. When our primate ancestors came down from the trees and started roaming the savannah -- probably because climate changes triggered habitat changes -- they were scrawny and not very fast, lacked wings, claws, fangs, or venom. What DID they have in a predator rich environment?
A brain that was optimized for the kinds of tasks that make complex social cooperation possible?
The popular view of our ancient ancestors as hunters who conquered all in their way is wrong, researchers have told a major US science conference.
Instead, they argue, early humans were on the menu for predatory beasts.
This may have driven humans to evolve increased levels of co-operation, according to their theory.
Despite humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence, we are highly sociable animals, according to anthropologists.
James Rilling, at Emory University in Atlanta, US, has been using brain imaging techniques to investigate the biological mechanisms behind co-operation.
He has imaged the brains of people playing a game under experimental conditions that involved choosing between co-operation and non-co-operation.
From the parts of the brain that were activated during the game, he found that mutual co-operation is rewarding; people reacted negatively when partners did not co-operate. [Smart Mobs]
This fits right in with some primate data that indicates that primates get very upset when there is a 'cheater' in the group, who gets rewarded as much for doing nothing as those that do something. This is why 'morals' are largely independent of religion. Cooperation worked better than simply doing whatever one wanted. Those that were not cooperative or who took advantage would not be very successful in such a social setting. These days, we are living through a time when cheats are pretending to be cooperative, and frame their stories in that light, but who actually hurt the social group, taking from it and not giving back. While possibly successful in the short term, a group that bases itself on such a viewpoint will eventually be shunned by most others and will fail. I expect the social networking tools we have today to more rapidly bring this about.
There was a nice bit of game theory work a few years ago that looked at cheats. The game was set up to look at philanthropy and altruism. Essentially, the more individuals in a team that donated money, the greater return to everyone in the group. But someone would figure out that the greatest return would come from being in a generous group, but not to donate any money oneself. So, they would benefit from the group but be better off individually, since they not only got their share of the group's return, but kept more of their own. In every case, the group eventually broke apart because the rest of the group did not want to be associated with the cheater. Everyone would cheat then. The researchers restored a balance by allowing people to opt out a round if they wanted to. What would happen it that all the 'good' people would opt out, leaving the cheats by themselves, effectively shunning them. Since none gave any money, their returns dropped substantially. They would then change their behavior, donating more. Then the 'good' people would opt back in and everyone's return would go up. Sometimes, the cheaters tried to game the system and the others would opt out. You got to a dynamic equilibrium where the overall good to the group was maintained, even if a small amount cheated at any one time.
But when the level of cheating gets too high, the group will do what it can to expel the cheaters. This new research seems to indicate this is because of our biology, not our morals. For whatever reason, the cheaters will eventually be expelled, or our social fabric will be broken. I think this is a greater immediate danger than global warming. We will not solve that problem until we expel the cheaters. 10:44:52 PM
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Byrd, Feingold, and Jeffords Stand Strong. Only three Senators had the courage to stand against a "cosmetically" changed Patriot Act. Senator Feingold, who has been fighting against the intrusive law since its inception, was joined by Senators Byrd and Jeffords in calling for more time to consider the bill. The extra time they were voted for would have allowed the Senate to consider amendments proposed by Senator Feingold. "We still have not addressed some of the most significant problems with the Patriot Act," Feingold said.
One of the amendments Feingold proposed would have set a four-year expiration date on the use of National Security Letters[~]demands for records issued by administrators[~]under the Patriot Act. Another would have required the government to notify the subject of a secret search within seven days or obtain court permission to maintain the secrecy for a longer period, rather than the 30-day requirement in the legislation being considered. Senator Feingold argued that without these changes the Patriot Act "will still allow government fishing expeditions."
On the Senate floor Wednesday, while calling for a thorough investigation into possible violations of intelligence law and the Constitution by the Bush Administration, Senator Byrd asked:
"Is this where we are heading in the land of the free? Are secret government programs that spy on American citizens proliferating? The question is not, 'Is Big Brother watching?' It is 'How many Big Brothers have we?'"
Senator Byrd went on to denounce the "culture of secrecy" that has emerged in the United States since September 11th:
"The culture of secrecy which has deepened since the attacks on September 11 has presented this nation with an awful dilemma. In order to protect this open society are we to believe that measures must be taken that in insidious and unconstitutional ways close it down? I believe that the answer must be an emphatic 'no.'"
Senator Jeffords also had strong words against the new and "improved" Patriot Act. Jeffords said in a statement that this version of the act would "fail to move us closer to the provisions that the Senate forwarded to the House last year."
Republicans have already moved quickly to attack these Senators, when in reality they should be praised. Senator Byrd faces a tough campaign this fall and needs all the help he can get. Republicans will take this truly courageous vote and spin it into a form of cowardice [^] we cannot allow that to happen. Senator Jeffords' seat will also be open this cycle due to his retirement. DFA has already endorsed his successor, Congressman Bernie Sanders, but continued commitment is essential. We need more elected officials, like these three Senators, who will stand up for what is right without fear of political repercussions.
[~]Chris Broadfoot [Blog for America]
Perhaps some of the items in the Patriot Act would be fine if properly administered. Unfortunately for us, I have a hard time really thiking of anything that this Administration has properly administered. Iraq? FEMA? Taxes? Medicare? Treatment of prisoners? Domestic spying? So why should this be any different? Glad at least 2 Dems and an Independent see the danger. 10:28:49 PM
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The edjumacation preznit
President Bush at Kansas State University
:
Q Hi, I just want to get your comments about education. Recently, $12.7 billion was cut from education, and I was just wondering how that's supposed to help our futures? (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Education budget was cut -- say it again. What was cut?
Q Twelve point seven billion dollars was cut from education, and I was just wondering how is that supposed to help our --
THE PRESIDENT: At the federal level?
Q Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: I don't think that -- I don't think we've actually -- for higher education? Student loans?
Q Yes, student loans.
THE PRESIDENT: Actually, I think what we did was reform the student loan program. We're not cutting money out of it. In other words, people aren't going to be cut off the program. We're just making sure it works better. Part of the reconciliation package, I think she's talking about. Yes, it's a reform of the program to make sure it functions better. It is -- in other words, we're not taking people off student loans, we're saving money in the student loan program because it's inefficient. And so I think the thing to look at is whether or not there will be fewer people getting student loans. I don't think so. And, secondly, on Pell grants, we're actually expanding the number of Pell grants through our budget.
But, great question. I think that the key on education is to make sure that we stay focused on how do we stay competitive into the 21st century. And I plan on doing some talking about math and science and engineering programs, so that people who graduate out of college will have the skills necessary to compete in this competitive world.
But I'm -- I think I'm right on this. I'll check when I get back to Washington. But thank you for your question. (Applause.)
He did check, and once again
he froze the Pell Grants
. Why is that a problem? Let's ask candidate Bush, from
his 2000 campaign page
. First objective:
1. Close the Achievement Gap between Disadvantaged Students and their Peers:
Ö
Fully fund the Pell grant program for first-year students by increasing the maximum grant amount by more than 50 percent, to $5,100.
Offer enhanced Pell grants (an additional $1,000) to low-income students who take rigorous math and science courses in high school.
Establish a $1 billion Math and Science Partnership for states, colleges and universities to strengthen K-12 math and science education.
Establish a $3 billion Education Technology Fund to ensure technology boosts achievement.
Top Pell Grants have remained at $4,050 for three years. Tax cuts for the wealthy were more important than "Clos[ing] the Achievement Gap between Disadvantaged Students and their Peers."
Either we have a serious problem with math education (Mr. President, are you aware that $4,050 is less than $5,100?) or we have a mismatch between the values he ran on and the values he's governed on. Bear in mind that the cost of education has
risen more rapidly than inflation over the last 15 years
, so holding a grant constant is a cut in real dollars.
Call your Congresscritter and tell it you voted for a president who would raise Pell Grants, and that he may not be up for re-election again, but Congress is about to be up for election again.
- Josh Rosenau [Thoughts from Kansas]
WHat happens when Bush gets a real question. He dissembles and is misleading. he does not know that his budget obliterates the things he claimed needed to be done when we was a candidate running for office. Let's see. What do we call someone who says whatever he needs to say just to get elected than goes back on that? I guess fully funding Pell Grants and education is just pre-9-11 thinking. 10:23:20 PM
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Know your audience, or improving 60 year-old ideas isn't anti-Darwinian
In
the followup
on Paul Nelson's piece
discussed a few days ago
, Nelson responds to two criticisms another blogger raised.
PZ Myers has done
a nice write-up of the paper
Nelson was commenting on, relieving me of the need to do so. The take-home message is that there are striking similarities in the sets of genes involved in development of many complex structures, shared by widely divergent species. These "kernels" are highly conserved, and may well date back to the pre-Cambrian. The kernels themselves are seen as likely evolving via standard evolutionary processes, but "Once they were assembled, they could not be disassembled or basically rewired, only built on to."
Paul Nelson insists that this work undermines neo-Darwinism, and that Davidson agrees. Nelson also insists that neo-Darwinism is well-defined, but leaves the proof as an exercise for the reader. For reference, we'll take the Wikipedia definition:
The modern evolutionary synthesis (often referred to simply as the modern synthesis or the evolutionary synthesis), neo-Darwinian synthesis or neo-Darwinism, generally denotes the combination of Charles Darwin's theory of the evolution of species by natural selection, Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics as the basis for biological inheritance, and mathematical population genetics.
Nelson is correct that this is different from "evolutionary diversification and adaptation happened by some process, and we know natural selection was involved, mainly, probably, somehow." It means that there are genes, that they mutate in the ways I described earlier, that natural selection can change gene frequencies, that genetic drift and gene flow can also shift allele frequencies in populations, and those are all forms of evolution. Indeed, one could say that these are the only ways evolution happens.
This leaves the
endosymbiotic hypothesis
outside the mainstream of neo-Darwinism. It's silly to insist that we refer to neo-Darwinism (neo=new!) or the "modern synthesis" (modern=new!) only in ways compatible with what we knew in the 1930s and '40s (before my parents were born != new!). We can talk about modern evolutionary biology as distinct from the "modern synthesis" and make an effort to refer to ideas which have developed in the last 60 years as neo-neo-Darwinism, or we can just recognize that scientific knowledge is a moving target. Nelson, like many creationists, is missing a key point here. It's a point that non-creationists can miss as well, so it bears some explaining.
Out of the simple mutations, natural selection, genetic drift, and gene flow, a number of complex patterns can emerge over long time-scales. The kernels Davidson and Erwin describe are one such pattern. A series of gene duplications, the simultaneous evolution (by all four methods found in any definition of neo-Darwinism) of a series of developmental pathways, all add up to a highly integrated system of interacting genes which regulate the development of, for instance, the heart in flies and in people. Davidson and Erwin don't dispute that the evolutionary mechanisms we teach in college biology are sufficient to explain this (as explained further by Myers, or
at Deinonychus antirrhopus
):
Critically, these kernels would have formed through the same processes of evolution as affect the other components, but once formed and operating to specify particular body parts, they would have become refractory to subsequent change.
Davidson and Erwin are building on the neo-Darwinism of the 1940s, not overturning it. What they are dealing with is integrating the ways genes interact throughout an organism's development, the way genes are regulated, and the way all of this ties into the evolution of the ways organisms develop. These are new things, exciting capabilities that have only existed for a couple decades. The field of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo to the cool kids) is new enough that KU just created an evo-devo position in the last few years. The techniques used and the major findings in the field are younger than I am.
Nelson justifies his claim that Davidson is a non-neo-Darwinist by quoting from
Genomic Regulatory Systems: Development and Evolution
by Eric H. Davidson
:
classical Darwinian evolution could not have provided an explanation, in a mechanistically relevant way, of how the diverse forms of animal life actually arose during evolution, because it matured before molecular biology provided explanations of the developmental process. To be very brief, the evolutionary theory that grew up before the advent of regulatory molecular biology dealt with the problem of the origin of novel organismal structures in two ways. The first has been to treat the mechanisms generating novel morphological structures as a black box. New forms were considered to arise "because" the environment changed. But while changes in Precambrian or Ordovician weather, continental shifts, or temperature may have contributed crucial selective forces, they do not generate heads or appendicular forms; only genes do that. The second mode of classical argument was that organismal evolution is the product of minute changes in genes and gene products,
which occur as point mutations
and which accumulate little by little, providing the opportunity for selection and ultimately reproductive isolation. The major forms this argument has taken have focused on stepwise, adaptive changes in protein sequence, but this is probably largely irrelevant to the evolution of any salient features of animal morphology (see, e.g., Miklos, 1993).
My emphasis. Note that he's specifying point mutations. There are other kinds,
as we've discussed
, and similar language occurs in Nelson's previous post. Asked by Nelson what could explain a developmental pathway Davidson had described, Nelson recounts that he said:
"Well, I'm not sure, but I know that standard
single-base-pair mutations
won't do it" -- meaning, as he later explained to me, the textbook neo-Darwinism every college biology student learns.
There's an enormous gap between single-base pair mutations (same as point mutations) and "textbook neo-Darwinism every college student learns." Paul Nelson is not a biologist. That's fine, I like seeing interested people explore new topics. And I suspect that Nelson is not trying to misrepresent Davidson in any massive way. He may know he's stretching, but I suspect he doesn't realize what he's wading into.
From the context, it's clear that Davidson is interested is disabusing people of the idea that all evolutionary change happens by point mutations followed by selection, drift and gene flow. Good. We do that in the college classes I've taken and those that I've taught. Davidson's argument is directed at other biologists. He's telling them to get it together and think seriously about developmental genetics, a new and exciting field which integrates standard evolutionary biology (including gene duplications and other non-point mutations) into a broader framework based on the details of the operation of the genome and new insights we're gaining into the process by which a fertilized egg becomes a complete organism.
This is a subtle distinction, and it may be that it went right past Nelson. Nelson is right that most evo-devo researchers would say that the 60 year-old version of the "modern synthesis" is showing its age. But that's what science does, it moves forward.
Paul Nelson is a young earth creationist. It used to be that a YEC could basically say that there was debate about evolution, and everyone said "gee, that must mean creationism is true." Those days are over. People understand that scientists debate the details of the mechanism without wanting to toss the mechanism out altogether. YEC has stayed the same for 100 years easily, while the science has changed. It's gotten better.
Intelligent design has no positive case for anything.
Nelson said
:
Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a full-fledged theory of biological design. We donít have such a theory right now, and thatís a problem. Without a theory, itís very hard to know where to direct your research focus. Right now, weíve got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as ëirreducible complexityí and ëspecified complexityí-but, as yet, no general theory of biological design.
Biologists have such a theory. It's evolution. Not necessarily the same thing people were talking about in the 1940s, let alone the 1860s. We have learned some new things, after all, but we have a Grand Unified Theory of biology, and that is evolution. We're working out all the details, but the core is sound. Questioning neo-Darwinism in the sense Davidson, evo-devo or Lynn Margulis do doesn't mean you're anti-evolution, or even doubtful. These are all clearly supporters of the modern modern synthesis, a synthesis which pulls developmental biology in, adds new insights from molecular biology and genomics, and mixes that all in with the old modern synthesis. They may dispute the simplistic nature of what we understood in the 1940s, but they don't doubt Darwin. They are improving on it. See
Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom
by Sean B. Carroll
for more on the modern modern synthesis.
A nice discussion of how science moves forward and gets better at describing the natural world. So, using a 60 year old definition is worthless. Heck, sometimes using a 5 year old point of view is incorrect. things are moving so fast in biology right now. 10:16:49 PM
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Meeting new people
From the list of Kansas blogs attached to the Eagle's story, I learned about "The Kansas Federalist." "Great," I thought, "a new thoughtful conservative to add to the list."
The top post disappointed me. The title was
Sedition or Treason - The Gore-ing of America
, and this is the key paragraph:
Former Vice President Al Gore appeared before a Saudi audience this past week and accused the United States of committing "terrible abuses" against Arabs after 9/11. Goreís remarks are highly inappropriate during a time of war and he should be in fact, arrested and charged for sedition and/or treason for his anti-American comments. In fact, the accusations cited are false and he has used doctored research material to make his arguments.
Sedition has a specific meaning, defined by
18 USC 2384
:
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
I think that pointing out that it was unfortunate that John Ashcroft (and Kris Kobach) rounded up a lot of people for no reason after 9/11 does not rise to a conspiracy "to destroy by force the Government of the United States." I'm a little worried that a former sheriff is relying on dictionary.com for his legal definitions.
Let's move along to treason, defined by
18 USC 2381
as:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
But anyone claiming the mantle of the Federalists should know that treason is not defined by US Code, but in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Again, I fail to see how pointing out that innocent people spent weeks in detention for no reason amounts to levying war against this country, nor how it constitutes aid and comfort to enemies.
As I say, one who claims the Federalists' mantle should know what the Federalist said about treason.
From Federalist 43, by James Madison:
As treason may be committed against the United States, the authority of the United States ought to be able to punish it. But, as new-fangled and artificial treasons, have been the great engines , by which violent factions, the natural offspring of free Governments, have usually wrecked their alternate malignity on each other, the Convention have with great judgment opposed a barrier to this peculiar danger, by inserting a constitutional definition of the crime, fixing the proof necessary for conviction of it, and restraining the Congress, even in punishing it, from extending the consequences of guilt beyond the person of its author.
I conclude that the Kansas Federalist is a partisan of precisely the sort of violent faction which the original Federalists decried, and that this "alternate malignity," this "new-fangled and artificial treason" Currie Myers is declaring makes the author unworthy of the title chosen for himself and his blog. Such historical anachronism will not stand, and I shall link thither no more.
As for
the round-ups of Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors
, nothing came of it:
NSEERS was so poorly conceived and badly managed that it created chaos and fear. Trust between the immigrant community and law enforcement was severely strained and, in the end, there was no evidence that any terrorists were apprehended as a result of the effort.
A detention facility in Queens, New York was called "
a little gulag
." Inmates there undertook at least one
hunger strike to protest the length of their detentions
. As of October, 2003, some had been kept there in solitary confinement without any judicial review for years.
Others were detained for months without any clear basis
, only to be released as
Congressional scrutiny mounted
. Part of the Congressional concern derived from news stories, public speeches and unhappy phone calls from people concerned about family members or basic principles of America. Those people were not committing treason, and certainly not sedition. They were petitioning their government for redress of grievances.
That's in the Constitution, too.
Yep. The cry for treasonous and seditious dogs to be dealt with are now being heard. The fact that 'little gulags' were in New York is something we are supposed to forget. That these people were released not because they were guilty or innocent but because Congress was going to look into the matter.. 10:08:23 PM
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Annals of the Pentagon: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted [CommonDreams NewsWire]
Yep here is the article that details how this Administration misled its own in order to make torture legal. Our leaders believed the reasoning of and signed off on decisions that say that torturing is fine if the President says so. What sort of country are we now? We have a prison in Gitmo that houses people we have determined are innocent but we are not going to release. We plan to hold people there as long as we want. We can do what we want, because we have removed them from any sort of oversight by the judiciary or Congress. And we still do not know what sorts of renditions have been going on, what other secret prisons we have built, what sort of gulag we are putting together. The photos from Abu Ghraib still come out. I bet we see others sometime. Because this Administration beleives that it is morally okay to torture. On our way by to the inquisition. 9:49:26 PM
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Permanent US Bases in Iraq (Edmundson). Did you know that the US has long planned a permanent military presence in Iraq? And that billions of dollars are being spent to build permanent US super bases housing tens of thousands of personnel? These facts have never been... [Leiter Reports: A Group Blog (Jan. 23-May 31 2006)]
Yep, large military bases and a huge embassy in Baghdad, with room for thousands, walls 15 feet thick and its own oil and power resources. I wonder what we will do if we are asked to leave? 9:38:42 PM
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ACLU Asks George Mason to Apologize. by TChris
The ACLU of Virginia wants George Mason University to make amends for its disgraceful interference with Tariq Khan's right to free expression.
Khan, a Pakistani-American and a U.S. Air Force veteran, was arrested on September 29, 2005 at a GMU student center after positioning himself several feet from a military recruiting table. He wore a small sign reading "Recruiters Tell Lies" taped to his chest and held leaflets to give to individuals who requested them.
Despite harassment from fellow students, Khan remained quiet. When told by a GMU official that he needed a permit to "table" in the area, Khan responded that he was not using a table, but merely standing quietly and expressing his opinion.
After refusing to move, Khan was handcuffed by campus police, dragged to a police vehicle, and transported to a Fairfax County police facility where he was booked for trespass and disorderly conduct.
Not surprisingly, the charges were dropped. Khan, after all, was engaging in constitutionally protected activity. [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
Yep. You can engage in constitutionally protected speech only as long as the authorities decide to let you. I am waiting for someone to bring up "But we are in wartime" to send people like this to prison. It has happened before in this country. Constitutionally protected speech is whatever the authorties or justices say it is. Oliver Wendall Holmes would have had this guy put away for his anti-war activity. 9:35:11 PM
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The Origin of Species, Side By Side. In tomorrow's New York Times, I have an article about how new species evolve. It describes new research into how a population can split into two species. The idea that species can evolve when populations get geographically isolated is well-supported... [The Loom]
A great article. Educate yourself. Because this is how science is done and how you change the opinions of your critics. In the pages of science journals. 9:27:12 PM
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Giant Book of the Month Club.  The phenomenon of Biblically Correct Tours is much in the news recently. (P.Z. Myers has a summary). Essentially, a creationist named Rusty Carter leads people on tours around museums chatting away about how dinosaurs and people lived together, how the world was created in seven days, and how the earth is only six thousand years old, ad nauseam. So I thought I’d mention Martin Rudwick’s new book, Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution, a (very, very large) history of how scientists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries figured out that the earth was very, very old. Certainly much older than six thousand years. The problem of the age of the earth is a good one partly because because it’s so tangible, partly because it’s a good story (the French and English scientists are great, and Thomas Jefferson gets a look-in as well), and partly because it was solved[1] more than two hundred years ago. Richard Fortey reviewed the book in the LRB (subscription req’d) recently. He begins the review with an anecdote:
… as I had anticipated, a caller from Kentucky duly declared that the world had been created in seven days, and what did I have to say to that? I invited the caller to ask himself whether, when his grandfather used the words ‘in my day’, he meant one particular day, or rather a season or a phase of life. I went on to say that the biblical ‘days’ could be better understood as whole eras, domesticated by a familiar terminology in order to make them comprehensible. Had I but known it, the same argument had already been thoroughly rehearsed by French naturalists more than two hundred years earlier. My creationist caller was restating a position which was already unfashionable in the late 18th century.
People like Rusty Carter make you appreciate scholars like Rudwick—not to mention the Enlightenment.
[1] I mean, it was established that the earth wasn’t just a few thousand years old. Sorry for the unclarity.
[Crooked Timber]
It seems we are reliving the Enlightenment in reverse. These ignorant fools are using the same arguments tried out 200 years ago and found wanting by anyone with half a brain. So I guess these guys have less than half a brain. But I may check into the Martin Rudwick book. As a scientist, I just do not fathom why some people want to remain willfully ignorant. It is easier to control people if they are ignorant, something our Founding Fathers knew and tried to protect us against. One of the fastest routes away from democracy, representative or otherwise, is an uninformed populace. So, it seems to me, that anyone who fosters such ignorance is un-American. 9:24:57 PM
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Reclassification of documents underway at NARA. From the New York Times: In a seven-year-old secret program at the National Archives, intelligence agencies have been removing from public access thousands of historical documents that were available for years, including some already published by the State Department and others photocopied years ago by private historians ... But because the reclassification program is itself shrouded in secrecy ... it continued virtually without outside notice until December. That was when an intelligence historian, Matthew M. Aid, noticed that dozens of documents he had copied years ago had been withdrawn from the archives' open shelves. Mr. Aid was struck by what seemed to him the innocuous contents of the documents, mostly decades-old State Department reports from the Korean War and the early cold war. He found that eight reclassified documents had been previously published in the State Department's history series, "Foreign Relations of the United States." "The stuff they pulled should never have been removed," he said. "Some of it is mundane, and some of it is outright ridiculous." Complete article (registration required). [LISNews.org]
Idiots. Reclassifying documents from the Korean War era. Documents that have already been copied or even published in Agency histories. And now, every single one of those people who has a copy is breaking the law. Nice. 9:13:38 PM
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Bode's 0-for-4 In Olympic "Run Of Mediocrity".... Bode Miller is now 0-for-4 at the Turin Games -- and all he's got left is his weakest event. Miller, who came to the Olympics as a medal contender in virtually all five Alpine events, continued his run of mediocrity Monday in the giant slalom, finishing in a tie for sixth.
The gold medal went to Benjamin Raich of Austria, whose time for the two runs was 2 minutes, 35.00 seconds. Joel Chenal of France won silver in 2:35.07, and Austria's Hermann Maier won bronze.
[The Huffington Post | Raw Feed]
This mediocrity meme is all over the place. I love some desk-bound writer calling a world class skier mediocre. Sports narratives are always the same. Either they are expected to win. If they do, see we were right. if they don't, what a disappointment. Howard Cosell was the 'master' of this during Monday Night football games. Miller is a skier who skis just one way - all out. He takes risks, wins some and loses others. Lots of athletes do this. Miller always has. Mediocre is not his style. Sometimes he wins. Sometimes he loses. Seems to me tat it takes a pretty wacky sort of human to fling themselves down a ski slope at such high speeds, with the real probability that they will injure themselves terribly if they make a mistake. I would be willing to bet that Miller and others ski because that level of control/non-control drives them. Winning or not winning is secondary. 9:34:52 AM
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Reforming Sex Offender Registration. by TChris
Requiring registration as a sex offender is an extreme measure that subjects the registered individual to shame and ridicule while limiting employment, housing and rehabilitative opportunities. If sex offender registration makes sense at all -- and there's little empirical evidence that it protects society -- it should be reserved for the worst offenders who are most likely to reoffend.
In places like Michigan, where the legislative desire to appear "tough on crime" overcame rationality, some kids are forced to register because they had consensual sex with a friend.
[I]n its zeal to appear aggressive (and to capture federal funding tied to the number of offenders registered), Michigan lawmakers cast their nets wide, subjecting thousands of low-risk, nonviolent offenders to mandatory registration.
Bay County Family Court Judge Karen Tighe is one of a dozen or so judges who have written me to express their alarm at the number of young men being "labeled for life" as sex offenders.
"Some of them are 16-year-olds who had consensual sex with a girlfriend who is 15," Tighe noted in an e-mail last month. "One young man has had trouble at college because he had to register as a sex offender over something that happened when he was 11."
Consigning kids to a lifetime of shame and underemployment doesn't make society safer. Congratulations to Brian Dickerson for having the courage to argue that sex offender registration in Michigan may be "ruining more lives than it has protected." [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime]
In many states, teenagers having consensual sex is not a sex crime at all. This sort of registration seems nonsensical but it fits the times. Keep teenagers from having sex by threatening them with a life-long taint of sex offender. As if that would actually work, since most teenagers do not reason that way about video games, much less sex. 9:24:49 AM
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Why Oh Why Are We Ruled by These Idiots? (Bush Science Policy Department). Science policy, George W. Bush style. The puzzle is not why so few scientists and academics are Bush-supporting Republicans. The puzzle is why any at all are. Michael Berube writes, apropos of Bush using Michael Crichton as his science advisor: Berube: Environmentalists were not the only group Mr. Bush considered during Mr. Crichtons visit. They covered the entire spectrum of Crichtons work, said Mr. Barnes. Crichton warned the President that the rapacious Japanese economy would soon crush America, that female executives are often the perpetrators in sexual-harassment cases, and, most important, that the lost city of Zinj is populated by... [Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal]
I laughed. They had an hour to talk so why not cover all the other 'true' things Crichton has published. 2:52:44 AM
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