Rhinocrisy

The Dover, Pa., evolution trial wrapped up last Friday. I must say I was rather disappointed by the whole thing, mostly because the prosecutor was long on invective and short on argument and came across as smarmy rather than informed.

We won’t know the verdict on the case until January of 2006, but for Dover the question is moot. Yesterday the citizens of Dover voted out eight of the nine school board members who were up for reelection and elected in their foul Darwinists from the Dover CARES group. But even though it won’t have any material effect, the federal court’s decision will set precedent. If it rules in favor of the (defunct) school board, it could produce ten, a hundred – nay, a thousand! – Dovers all over the country.

Meanwhile, those cranks in Kansas are apparently getting in on the game early. The Kansas State Board of Education yesterday released a new set of science standards which prompted a great hue and cry across the land (like this Bloomberg story, “Kansas State Board Votes to Teach Intelligent Design in Schools”). The National Academy of Sciences actually wrote them a nasty letter a few weeks back, stating that they are unhappy with their draft standards, which they feel is designed to undermine the theory of evolution. Therefore, they are refusing to allow their copyrighted “National Science Education Standards” to be used by Kansas.^* It might seem a bit extreme of them to be bringing the hammer down like that. They seem especially wroth that Kansas has changed the very definition of science. Here’s the new text:

Science is a systematic method of continuing investigation that uses observations, hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, logical argument and theory building to lead to more adequate explanations of natural phenomena. Science does so while maintaining strict empirical standards and healthy skepticism. Scientific explanations are built on observations, hypotheses, and theories. A hypothesis is a testable statement about the natural world that can be used to build more complex inferences and explanations. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can incorporate observations, inferences, and tested hypotheses.

Scientific explanations must meet certain criteria. Scientific explanations are consistent with experimental and/or observational data and testable by scientists through additional experimentation and/or observation. Scientific explanation must meet criteria that govern the repeatability of observations and experiments. The effect of these criteria is to insure that scientific explanations about the world are open to criticism and that they will be modified or abandoned in favor of new explanations if empirical evidence so warrants. Because all scientific explanations depend on observational and experimental confirmation, all scientific knowledge is, in principle, subject to change as new evidence becomes available. The core theories of science have been subjected to a wide variety of confirmations and have a high degree of reliability within the limits to which they have been tested. In areas where data or understanding is incomplete, new data may lead to changes in current theories or resolve current conflicts. In situations where information is still fragmentary, it is normal for scientific ideas to be incomplete, but this is also where the opportunity for making advances may be greatest. Science has flourished in different regions during different time periods, and in history, diverse cultures have contributed scientific knowledge and technological inventions. Changes in scientific knowledge usually occur as gradual modifications, but the scientific enterprise also experiences periods of rapid advancement. The daily work of science and technology results in incremental advances in understanding the world.

Chilling, isn’t it? It’s so… um… Yeah. What’s wrong with that, exactly? I’m not sure.

The bits on evolution, on the other hand, are unequivocal. From the Life Science standards for 8-12 graders, benchmark 3 (biological evolution):

The student… 3. understands biological evolution is used to explain the earth’s present day biodiversity: the number, variety and variability of organisms.
…
d. Whether microevolution (change within a species) can be extrapolated to explain macroevolutionary changes (such as new complex organs or body plans and new biochemical systems which appear irreducibly complex) is controversial. These kinds of macroevolutionary explanations generally are not based on direct observations and often reflect historical narratives based on inferences from indirect or circumstantial evidence.

and later:

The student… 7. explains proposed scientific explanations of the origin of life as well as scientific criticisms of those explanations. Some of the scientific criticisms include:
a A lack of empirical evidence for a “primordial soup” or a chemically hospitable pre-biotic atmosphere;
b. The lack of adequate natural explanations for the genetic code, the sequences of genetic information necessary to specify life, the biochemical machinery needed to translate genetic information into functional biosystems, and the formation of proto-cells; and
c. The sudden rather than gradual emergence of organisms near the time that the Earth first became habitable.

This is pretty clearly cribbed from some Discovery Institute pamphlet and represents lunatic ignorance unworthy of a state science standard. And remember, kids: the more lunatic ignorance we have, the closer we get to the Kingdom of God.

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^* Hedgehog points out this Wired article decrying the use of evil copyright schemes to enforce good sense. Although frankly I doubt the NAS actually had any principles on the subject to compromise; it’s only the sensibilities of their lefty fellow-travelers that are offended.

I liked number 3. BECAUSE IT FUCKING MELTS SKIN OFF CHILDREN. But numbers 1 and 2 are worth perusing as well.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? Hopefully you’re not American. Because if you are, I am talking about your tax dollars at work.

I want to know when this Global War on Terrorism is going to start, you know, reducing terrorism. Because this is getting ever less fun.

I am impressed by the growing use of “citizen journalists” on the BBC site. Now if some of those emotional testimonials — which are great — could also add to the news story with direct quotes, exact numbers of injured, number of emergency personnel on the scene, etc., that would be even better.

Sometimes I think that rather than becoming an investigative reporter who covers business, I should have just gone into finance myself. Instead, I get to watch as the wealth of the world is sucked up into vanity while billions of people shiver and lose their teeth. Our teeth, I should say, as I have not been to a dentist in way too long. Wall St Journal (subscription):

Overall, compensation on Wall Street is expected to go up an average of 20% this year and many executives will see even bigger gains, according to a soon-to-be-released study by New York-based executive search firm Options Group.

Investment bankers, who arrange mergers and stock offerings for corporations and have received a smaller percentage of the bonus pie in recent years, are expected to be among the Street’s biggest winners this year, with compensation rising 20% to 25% on average, according to the study.

For an investment banker at the managing director level, a senior post on Wall Street, that will translate into an average pay package of between $2.2 million to $3.3 million this year. A global head of investment banking could pull in on average anywhere between $7 million to $10 million.

The study estimates that bonuses won’t be so hot for some in the bond crowd. Traders and others who focus on convertible and junk, or “high yield,” bonds are more likely to see their paychecks shrink by about 10% on average as their business wasn’t as good in 2005 as in previous years. For a managing director level convertible-bond trader that will translate into a 2004 pay package of $700,000 to $900,000 on average.

This information does not make me envious. Instead it fires me with an emotion in which I take no pride. I am fueled with destructive hate.

It’s nice to see a potential flashpoint getting potentially defused. I have a pet obsession with the Spratly Islands, an archipelago of tiny rocks and atolls in the South China Sea. They are disputed among 6.5 sovereign countries. China and Taiwan are the 1.5., adding to the Philippines, Vietnam, and partial claims by Malaysia and Brunei. I have been wondering for a while whether there was some sort of intrigue in the fact that China, Vietnam, and the Philippines signed a joint oil-exploration pact last year, cutting out the other claimants. Turns out I was being paranoid. The Philippines are now inviting the other claimants to join in. So if there is going to be war there, it won’t be over oil, but rather over fish or shipping lanes. Awwww.

According to the Democrats, the White House has once again changed something on its website to avoid embarrassment. This wouldn’t be the first time — during the last Presidential campaign, quite a few pages disappeared.

At the same moment — as I write — two of the Internet’s greates pioneers are on the White House website responding to “Ask the White House” questions from the public. Somehow I doubt they will respond to my question:

How can we ensure that history remains accurately recorded when pages on the Internet can so easily be changed? Does the Internet make it easier or harder to change recorded history?

UPDATE: They did take it. Their vaguely satisfying response:

That’s a really good question! There are projects underway to capture the dynamic contents of the World Wide Web. Brewster Kahle is running an Internet Archive project for example. The content of the WWW is dynamic and often ephemeral and potentially modifiable, as you suggest. Digital Signature technology is one way of protecting information by exposing any attempt to modify it. But even that may not guarantee absolute integrity protection forever. The use of digital objects and its underlying ability to verify the integrity of digital content through the use of the Handle System that Bob Kahn has been working on at CNRI offers another fruitful avenue towards solving this problem. In addition efforts such as the American Memory project at the Library of Congress and recent efforts to automate the National Archives represent institutional approaches to this problem.

Draft-dodger gives Presidential Medal of Freedom to draft resister. Compared to last year, anyway, this year’s list of awardees should be cause for celebration. Better a lame comedian, a very skilled golfer, and just one war-criminal.

Woops. Past time to take down that old poll. I guess those fetus jokes weren’t as funny as they sounded.

Continuing in that vein, new lackadaisical poll up. In case you can’t tell, my creative energies are running at a low ebb, here. I think they’re actually being funneled into graduate school. (Can you imagine? What, me, conscientious?) Next time I’m going to make Hedgehog do the poll.

In 1996 the Pope made a famous statement that was construed by many parties as endorsing the theory of evolution. Therein he acknowledged that evolution is “more than just a hypothesis”. But he also included several caveats:

Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God (“animal enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere inhet”; Encyclical Humani generic, AAS 42 [1950], p. 575).

Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.

Philosophical naturalism, especially as it concerns the human mind, might be incompatible with the Christian understanding of the soul. But he concludes by saying this need not necessarily dismay us:

Consideration of the method used in the various branches of knowledge makes it possible to reconcile two points of view which would seem irreconcilable. The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition into the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation, which nevertheless can discover at the experimental level a series of very valuable signs indicating what is specific to the human being. But the experience of metaphysical knowledge, of self-awareness and self-reflection, of moral conscience, freedom, or again, of aesthetic and religious experience, falls within the competence of philosophical analysis and reflection while theology brings out its ultimate meaning according to the Creator’s plans.

Earlier this year a cardinal wrote an op-ed downplaying this statement and expressing his support for “intelligent design” theory.

Well, now the Vatican has stepped up to unequivocally support the theory of evolution (and secular science more generally) and shut down any nagging doubts about where the church stands. Cardinal Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, says:

“The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,” the French prelate said at a Vatican press conference. The real message of the first chapter of Genesis was that “the Universe didn’t make itself and had a creator”.

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard said. Precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm – science. “Science and theology act in different fields, each in its own,” he added.

Cardinal Poupard said it was important for Roman Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to “understand things better”.

Of course I don’t think this will have any impact on Americans. Willful ignorance seems to be a priority here.

Paris is still rioting. Other parts of France are joining in.

Lots of idiots on the right-wing blogosphere are crowing about this. E.g., “What do decades of idle submission and spineless obiesance under the guise of tolerance reap?“, as if French society has actually displayed anything resembling tolerance towards its large Muslim minority. The other widely-voiced sentiment is that this is just Muslims showing their true colors. Quoth Robert Spencer of FrontPageMag:

That decision is a small example of what the Paris riots demonstrate on a large scale: the abject failure of the multiculturalist philosophy that disparate groups can coexist within a nation without any idea that they must share at least some basic values. The French are paying the price today for blithely assuming that France could absorb a population holding values vastly different from that of the host population without negative consequences for either.

Michelle Malkin is a good place to go to get a nice taste of the sentiment.

I hate to be trite, but this picture is simply at odds with reality. France has been anything but multiculturalist, and in fact has been quite uniform in demanding that its Muslim minority conform, damnit, to the standards of French culture.