Month: May 2024

“Enough,” said the Bear

The UK is rapidly approaching the “find out” zone:

Moscow will retaliate against British targets in Ukraine or elsewhere if Kiev uses UK-provided missiles to strike Russian territory, the Foreign Ministry told London’s ambassador on Monday. Ambassador Nigel Casey was summoned to the ministry following remarks by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron to Reuters that Ukraine has the right to use long-range missiles sent by the UK to strike deep inside Russia.

”Casey was warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons on Russian territory could be any British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and beyond,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement following the meeting.

Ukraine does have the right. And so does Russia. What we’re seeing here are clear and present signs that Russia is now ready for direct conflict with NATO, in Ukraine, in Europe, and in the Americas.

I guess we’re going to find out just how stupid the clowns running Clown World really are. The problem is that they’re so accustomed to lying and bluffing all the time, they don’t recognize a straightforward warning when one is provided.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Gazacaust is Bad PR

Mitt Romney is bewildered. He can’t figure out why Israel is suddenly getting all this bad PR when all they’re doing is defending themselves from an attack that took place seven months ago.

Social media is partially responsible for the widespread international criticism of Israel’s conduct during its military campaign in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has suggested. The top American diplomat made the comment during an exchange with Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah) at the McCain Institute’s 2024 Sedona Forum in Sedona, Arizona on Friday.

Romney asked Blinken why “the PR [has] been so awful” for Israel amid the conflict in Gaza. “Why has [Palestinian armed group] Hamas disappeared in terms of public perception? An offer is on the table to have a ceasefire, and yet the world is screaming about Israel,” he said. “Typically, the Israelis are good at PR. What’s happened here?” Romney said.

The Secretary of State recalled that when he started working in Washington in the early 1990s “everyone did the same thing,” which was reading newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, and watching national news networks to get information about world events.

But now, in the 2020s, “we are on an intravenous feed of information with new impulses, inputs every millisecond” and social media “has dominated the narrative,” he said.

Now, I’m no marketing expert, but it strikes me that the combination of a) mass graves being found in Gaza, b) unprecedented crackdowns on college protesters, and c) passing anti-Constitutional laws to threaten anyone who objects to genocide is not particularly amenable to positive public relations.

When you’ve lost Scott Adams to the point that he is dropping more F-bombs than an Iranian drone strike, it can’t be long before you lose the rest of the Boomers.

UPDATE: The IDF expanded its defensive operations with airstrikes on the city of Rafah tonight.

DISCUSS ON SG

A Physicist Endorses MITTENS

Your MITTENS Theorem is of course valid, and more precise and detailed than was possible for the physicists in 1966. You have also independently proposed the correct, and only possible alternative to Neo-Darwinism, what you termed IGM in your October 14, 2012 blog post. You should repost this mechanism, together with more discussion. This mechanism has been repeatedly rediscovered since the famous 19th century Harvard biologist Asa Gray first proposed it, correctly identifying God, not intelligent aliens, as the agent. Charles Darwin himself denounced Gray’s version of your theory, which is less precise than your version.
– Dr. Frank Tipler, Professor of Mathematics and Physics, Tulane University

I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked up the post. It turns out that IGM stands for Intelligent Genetic Manipulation, which is a mechanism I developed in response to four points put forth to me by one of the more reasonable Neo-Darwinians.

  1. Let us take as evidentially established the fact that species which existed in the past now exist no longer and are extinct.
  2. Let us take as evidentially established the fact that not all species now extant existed at all times throughout the history of organic life.
  3. Therefore, it must be possible for species which did not exist to come into existence by some mechanism, just as species which do exist can go extinct by any variety of mechanisms.
  4. If it is a fact that new species can come into existence while others go extinct, by what mechanism other than evolution through natural selection are these species proposed to arise, and does that proposed mechanism explain more of the observed evidence than TeNS?

I more or less concurred with the first three points, and in response to the fourth, proposed Intelligent Genetic Manipulation as a mechanism that not only explains more of the observed evidence than TeNS, but unlike TeNS, remains potentially valid because it has not been mathematically ruled out by MITTENS. Please keep in mind that this was written 12 years ago, long before some of the significant advances in the various genome projects which are far more consistent with intelligent genetic manipulation than with the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow, or TE(p)NSBMGDaGF, as it is properly identified in its full epicycular form.

Intelligent Genetic Manipulation is the mechanism that I propose. And yes, I believe that explains more of the observed evidence than TENS, since IGM is a scientific proposition, a readily observed action, and a successful predictive model, whereas TENS is a philosophical proposition, an unobserved process, and an unsuccessful predictive model.

Now, this does not provide any basis for assuming the existence of a Creator God, or even declaring that TENS did not actually take place. The logical fact of the matter is that even if TENS can be conclusively demonstrated to have taken place in various species, which has not happened despite more than 150 years of trying, that doesn’t necessarily mean the process was sufficient to produce Man. If one contemplates the biological differences between ape and man, the vast leap in cognitive capacity taking place in a relatively small sum of generational cycles from the proposed common ancestor in comparison with the timelines supposedly required for other, less complicated evolutionary changes, the logic suggests – though it does not prove – that some degree of purposeful genetic manipulation has likely taken place at various points in the origin of the species and the development of homo sapiens sapiens.

I’m not talking about Intelligent Design, but rather intelligent editing. And the interesting thing is that IGM should be an increasingly falsifiable concept as genetic science continues to improve. Only recently have we learned that junk DNA serves a purpose; even though we have sequenced various genomes, we haven’t yet understood how the code works or fully comprehended the various ways it can be manipulated. As our understanding grows, we should be able to develop an ability to recognize patterns that indicate purposeful alterations in the code have been made.

An Alternative Mechanism, 12 October 2012

Twelve years later, it is now clear that IGM is superior to the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow in every single way. It is not only not mathematically impossible, we know for certain it is possible because we already engage in purposeful genetic manipulation ourselves. IGM is not a philosophical tautology, it is an eminently falsifiable scientific hypothesis, as we are already developing mechanisms that provide the retroactive ability to see that a gene has been edited, and IGM already provides a better, more credible explanation for genetic anomalies such as human chromosome 2 (HSA2) that scientists presently imagine to have been caused by a single freak mutation that happened to fuse two primate chromosomes at the precise moment of a population bottleneck 740,000 years ago, a mutation that was so amazingly beneficial that it somehow managed to fixate through the entire human species at a rate much faster than Genghis Khan’s genetic lineage has been observed to propagate.

And if IGM does not address the question of the origin of life, well, neither does TE(p)NSBMGDaGF. And unlike TE(p)NSBMGDaGF, it even “predicts” the utility and significance of what was once erroneously labled “junk DNA” whereas all that TE(p)NSBMGDaGF ever “predicted” was the possibility of the existence of a rodent that had already been known to Man for centuries.

Biologists should not be the least bit reluctant to leave the useless theories of Neo-Darwinism behind or to abandon evolution by natural selection. To the contrary, we now have a growing body of scientific evidence that humanity is not, and never was, alone in the universe. And whoever, or whatever, the parties responsible may be, we know that they have at least a modicum of what appears to be beneficial interest in us, or they would not have manipulated our genes to enhance our cognition and self-awareness as they appear to have done.

On a philosophical note, I very much doubt it is a question of God or aliens. Because the answer, in all probability, will somehow involve both. We know that God works through men, even through the most unlikely of men. Logic therefore suggests that if aliens of any kind exist, God will work through them too.

“Yeah, I know, make sure it lays eggs, on it.”

DISCUSS ON SG

The End Approaches

Simplicius considers the implications of Russia putting the unelected dictator of the Kiev regime on its wanted list:

The most interesting development surrounds the Kremlin having designated Zelensky himself—as well as several other top Ukrainian officials and generals—as “wanted”, though oddly enough, the precise legal reason is unclear and not listed on the Russian Interior Ministry’s site.

The most immediate repercussions of this are:

  • Russia may be sending a signal and setting the groundwork for the revocation of any “peace deals” with Zelensky, as placing him on the wanted list ensures that the Russian state cannot legally parley with a wanted criminal.
  • Even more darkly, it potentially sets the stage for Russia to eliminate him following his total loss of legitimacy on May 21st, when the Ukrainian presidential inauguration would have taken place.

As to the first point, there have been a lot of signals from both the West and Ukraine itself about coming back to another ‘negotiations’ within the Istanbul mode, particularly given the upcoming global ‘Peace Summit’ in Switzerland on June 15th. Russia may be sending the West a message that no matter what they come up with during this summit, it will be impossible to treat with a man considered not only illegitimate but even a wanted criminal at the state level.

One of the other interesting things in Simplicius’s article is a reference to Russian prisoners being held by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. First, the prisoner ratio is 3.45:1, which implies that the Ukrainian casualties over the course of the operation have been more than three times that of the Russian forces. Second, and more importantly, only 13.8 percent of the Russian prisoners are actually Russian. 86.2 percent are described as “separatists”, which proves exactly what I have been pointing out from the start: the Russians have been mostly saving their professional military forces for the potential conflict with NATO and relying heavily upon the Novorossiyan militias, with support from the Russian army’s air and artillery, to defeat the Ukrainian armies.

And recall that a fair number of those “Russian” prisoners are quite likely prison-mercenaries from Wagner and the other private companies or Chechen light infantry. In fact, the initial blitz attempt on Kiev had a heavy complement of Chechen fighters, who were ultimately driven back from Bucha.

This suggests that if the Russian generals decide to utilize their own ground forces in one of the expected summer offensives, the results might be considerably more negative for the Kiev regime than is commonly anticipated. Meanwhile, the Russians also appear to be stepping up their warnings to the NATO regimes propping up their Clown World counterpart in Kiev.

A blaze has engulfed a plant in Berlin belonging to German arms manufacturer Diehl, the local fire department has reported. The company produces the IRIS-T air defense system, several units of which the German government has supplied to Ukraine since late 2022.

DISCUSS ON SG

Women Love Bears

If you were alone in the woods, would you rather encounter a bear or a man? Answers to that hypothetical question have sparked a debate about why the vast majority say they would feel more comfortable choosing a bear. The topic has been hotly discussed for weeks as men and women chimed in with their thoughts all over social media. Screenshot HQ, a TikTok account, started the conversation, asking a group of women whether they would rather run into a man they didn’t know or a bear in the forest. Out of the seven women interviewed for the piece, only one picked a man.

I don’t know why everyone is so surprised. It’s no secret that women love bears. Especially big ones.

DISCUSS ON SG

How Genghis Khan’s MITTENS Strangled Darwin

One of the reasons I occasionally find it profitable to engage with anklebiters is that they help me get a handle on what I need to do to bridge the communication gap with normal individuals. No offense, but I often can’t tell the difference between the average midwit and the average retard, or determine precisely where along the logic rollercoaster someone is going to fall off without being provided the assistance of some sort of safety rails keeping them on the track.

So, it was with a bit of chagrin that I realized how, despite my best efforts to make every element of my case for the Mathematical Impossibility of The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (MITTENS) easily intelligible, I had made precisely the same mistake that the symposium physicists did in 1966. Which is to say, I was requiring my critics to possess an ability to make a correct logical leap that is observably beyond the ability of most people, and had thereby rendered what should have been an incontrovertible argument theoretically contestable in the eyes of the average individual. MPAI strikes again.

Fortunately, a Darwinian true believer who lacked the necessary ability chose to inform me on Gab that the math in MITTENS was both “bad” and “wrong” without bothering to correct it.

I’m no biologist, and I do enjoy math. It pains me to see bad math, which is the only reason I keep on poking at this. Ultimately, it’s not even a math error, the error is in the priors. Asserting that 1600 fixations per generation is the highest possible fixation rate is the root.

First, it’s worth pointing out that setting a ceiling of 1600 fixations per generation would not be an error, and in fact is considerably higher than the highest possible fixation rate ever imagined by anyone. Second, I responded to him by pointing out that since he had somehow managed to reverse the relationship between generations and fixations, and was therefore asserting that it was reasonable to imagine a blistering and hitherto-unseen super-parallel rate of 1,600 fixations per generation, it was unlikely that he had truly been able to detect a mathematical error in what, after all, is some very basic math.

It will probably not surprise you to know that this obvious error neither stopped him nor slowed him down in the slightest:

If I said 1600 per generation, that was a typo. I am flawed, I do make the occasional mistake. That’s the rate for bacteria. Using it for chimps requires more than simply asserting it is so. I will concede that the math itself is correct. Vox is capable of multiplication. The analysis is flawed because the input is incorrect.

It is like taking the top speed of a snail (Best I could find is 0.2 miles per hour for the giant African land snail) and using that to claim we never went to the moon. 226000 miles / 0.2 miles per hour = 1,130,000 hours = 129 years. It has been less than 129 years since the Apollo program, so we can’t have made it there yet.

If you use the wrong starting values, the math leads you astray.

I responded by observing that now he had reversed the appropriate analogy as well. My argument for the mathematical impossibility of the theory of evolution by natural selection is much more akin to pointing out that since the maximum speed of a Moon rocket is the 24,791 mph recorded by Apollo 10, and since it took three days, three hours and 49 minutes for Apollo 11 to reach the Moon, any claim that a Giant African Land Snail travelling at 0.2 mph had flown to the Moon under its own power in less than 24 hours must be false.

This second correction somehow did not dissuade him from continuing to claim that while my math was admittedly correct, the mathematical argument it supported was still “weak”.

The rate of mutation is typically cited per individual per generation. The rate of fixation is of course a population-wide measure. The experiment in the 2009 Nature paper measured a fixation rate of 1 fixation per 1600 generations. The bacteria in the experiment have a rate of mutation of about 1/1000 per generation per individual.

The rate of fixation of neutral mutations is proportional to the rate of mutation (and with certain simplifying assumptions, is equal to the rate of mutation per individual per generation).

The rate of mutation per generation per individual in chimps and humans is on the rough order of 30, over four orders of magnitude higher than that of the bacteria. The rate of fixation will thus be proportionately higher. Using the correct rate of fixation produces numbers comparable to the ones evolutionary geneticists use in molecular clock calculations.

This is why Vox’s “mathematical” argument is weak – it’s using an invalid prior to come to an incorrect conclusion.

I therefore observed that in his attempted defense of neo-Darwinism, he was asserting that mutations fix four orders of magnitude faster ACROSS THE ENTIRE GLOBALLY-DISTRIBUTED SPECIES in both humans and chimpanzees alike than across a small population of laboratory bacteria, which is total nonsense because the fixation rate in laboratory bacteria in the 2009 study published in NATURE is the fastest ever observed by scientists.

I also pointed out his extrapolation that more mutations occurring in a growing, geographically-distributed, and more genetically complex species necessarily means that species will fixate much more quickly than the simpler species was a logical error. To be more precise, his baseless assertion was absolute and utter nonsense; since chimpanzees and humans are far more widely distributed than bacteria living in a single petri dish, any advantageous mutations making an appearance will tend to fixate much more slowly in their populations than in the bacteria.

In fact, the theory of natural selection even suggests that what is an advantageous mutation in one geographical area might well be a disadvantage elsewhere, thereby preventing its fixation. He was literally appealing to his own imagination rather than math, science, or any observable evidence, and he proved quite willing to continue standing upon that imaginary foundation.

Your math is still wrong. Fixation proceeds in parallel. The rate of fixation is equal to the rate of mutation, and the latter can be measured. (Former’s a touch harder, but some bacterial experiments have done it, and confirm the rate.) The rate of mutation needed for the genetic clock is within a factor of two of what’s observed now.

He was, of course, incorrect, as he was citing Wikipedia or some other Internet source without understanding it. As it happens, according to the scientific papers, the rate of fixation is absolutely not equal to the rate of mutation for a) any non-static population, or, b) any beneficial mutation, which happens to be the only kind of mutation that is relevant to the topic of fixation. Also, my critic apparently did not know that the original average of 1,600 generations per fixation reported in the NATURE study specifically included several mutations fixed in parallel.

However, his stubborn insistence that my argument was insufficiently conclusive made me realize that I had unwittingly gifted him the out to which he was clinging by erroneously expecting him to be able to accept what I considered to be obvious: I was assuming that the fastest mutational fixations ever observed in laboratory bacteria were faster, in generational terms, than any fixation occurring in a more genetically complicated species dwelling in the wild. Just as relying upon probability rendered the physicists’ math-based arguments too difficult for the innumerate biologists of the 1966 symposium to understand and accept, my failure to provide a specific example of natural fixation rates among species with higher mutation rates gave my logic-challenged critic sufficient cover to retreat to an ontological argumentum ad imaginariam.

And while I am aware of no substantive studies on mutational fixation rates in humans, which is understandable given the challenge presented by the time frames involved, there does happen to be the famous case of Genghis Khan, who is popularly supposed to have been the male ancestor for nearly one-quarter of the human race. Upon review, this turned out to be a fairly serious exaggeration of his actual genetic influence, but it proved useful nonetheless. And, better yet, his genetic legacy had already been analyzed in terms of mutational fixation!

The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols: a groundbreaking 2003 historical genetics study.

When sampling DNA from 16 populations across Asia, researchers were surprised to find that nearly one in 12 men on the continent shared an unusual Y-chromosomal lineage – one that they said likely came from Genghis Khan. The genetic line showed that about 8 percent of men in the region of the former Mongol empire, and therefore about one in 200 worldwide, share one single male ancestor.

This rise in frequency, if spread evenly over ∼34 generations, would require an average increase by a factor of ∼1.36 per generation and is thus comparable to the most extreme selective events observed in natural populations, such as the spread of melanic moths in 19th-century England in response to industrial pollution (Edleston 1865).

Note two things before we get to the math. First, based on the 2003 date of publication, the researchers were using a period of 23.44 years per generation, distinct from the 20 years per generation I’ve been using. They also appear to have used a slightly starting date for unknown reasons. But these differences are irrelevant and I only mention them to explain the different base number of generations: 40.85 vs ~34. Second, pay very close attention to this phrase: “is thus comparable to the most extreme selective events observed in natural populations”.

Genghis Khan’s third son, and successor, was born in 1186. It took 817 years, or 40.85 generations of 20 years, for his father’s genes to propagate sufficiently to reach 0.5 percent (the 1 in 200 worldwide figure reported in the study expressed in percentage terms) of a species-wide fixation. At this rate, which is “comparable to the most extreme selective events observed in natural populations”, it would take 8,170 generations (40.85 generations x 200) and 163,400 years to fixate a hypothetical “Genghis Khan gene” across the human population, although just to be clear, there is no evidence that there is any genuine mutational advantage to being descended from the individual who was the greatest warlord in human history as well as one of its more conspicuous collectors of fertile young concubines. This application of sexual selection, however one-sided, rather than natural selection per se, means that 8,170 generations per fixation is almost certainly a very conservative estimate.

This means that the fastest observed rate of practical partial fixation in the natural human population has run at 19.58 percent of the fastest-ever rate of observed fixation in laboratory bacteria. As the logic used to construct MITTENS correctly suggested, the bacteria in the lab have been observed to fixate mutations at a rate at least five times faster than the human population has ever been observed to do.

Since evolution by natural selection has now been reduced to purely ontological arguments, what sort of fitness advantage can you possibly imagine that would be more powerful than the sexual-selection advantage the literally rapacious Khan of Khans himself was historically known to utilize?

I’ll lay out the math in analogical terms that everyone can easily grasp in a future post, but for now, the genetic legacy of Genghis Khan should suffice to address any remaining structural objections to the legitimacy of MITTENS and its conclusive falsification of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis.

UPDATE: You might think I’m exaggerating the stupidity and the innumeracy of the biologists. I’m not. They legitimately do not comprehend the existence of the concept of an “average”, much less have the ability to grasp MITTENS. This is an actual quote from one self-appointed defender of Darwin:

“This so-called math isn’t necessary to evolution since there is no one set speed of evolution or even of mutation.“

DISCUSS ON SG

An Unconscionable Hope

A lieutenant colonel from the 2nd Armored Cav tells the Council on Foreign Relations that it is time for Ukraine – and its Clown World masters – to surrender to Russia, because there is no path to military victory and absolutely no chance that they will ever succeed in their war against Russia.

I have 20-something years of military experience, four combat deployments. I fought in a large tank battle in Desert Storm with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment. We also served time on the east-west border in Germany, where we had to patrol against the potential onslaught of the Soviet Union coming in. So I had to actually study the Soviet doctrine, their tanks, the way they fight, the way they do offense, the way they do defense, in terrain very similar to what’s going on in Ukraine right now. I was also the second-in-command of an armored cav squadron for the U.S. 1st Armored Division in the mid-2000s.

Believe me when I tell you there is no chance that Ukraine will ever succeed in its war against Russia. There is no path to military victory for Ukraine, period. It doesn’t matter if we give $60 billion. It doesn’t matter if we give another $120 billion, $200 billion. It’s not going to make any difference, because the fundamentals that go in to build combat power at the national level are decisively and irrevocably on the Russian side. You cannot buy your way into this situation where you can turn the tables because you can’t undo the fundamentals.

The air power on the Russian side is overwhelmingly and irrevocably on the Russian side. Air defense, thei military industrial capacity to be able to crank out large numbers of artillery ammunition, the weapons themselves, the drones, electronic warfare, and most importantly of all, the people. Russia has more people and they will always have more people, and it’s throughout the West. They will never be able to match what happens on the other side.

In my view, it is unconscionable to continue hoping against hope that the Ukraine side can win if we just give a little bit more cash, because it won’t work out that way.

I’ve been saying the same thing since before the Special Military Operation launched in February 2022. So has anyone with a sufficient grasp of both economics and military history. The only reason Ukraine has lasted as long as it has is because a) Russia elected to switch to an attritional strategy after its initial attempt at a rapid decapitation strike failed in order to preserve its military manpower and b) NATO constructed two additional armies to replace the original Ukrainian army after it was destroyed.

The army that is now more than twice-decimated and in desperate need of a nationwide mobilization to prevent it from collapsing is the THIRD Ukrainian army of the war. Few yet understand that the extent of the losses to Ukraine is already more severe than the generational losses England suffered in the first and second world wars.

Unfortunately, as we have been told by more than a few conspiracy analysts, Ukraine is the Deep State, and Clown World does not care how many innocent people it has to sacrifice to try to save itself. Unless and until Putin and Xi start striking at the parties responsible for unnecessarily prolonging the war, or the UFA flat-out refuses to fight anymore, I don’t see how it will be possible for the Ukrainian people to save themselves by surrendering.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Vacuous Rhetoric of Evolution

This is a quote from the 1966 Philadelphia symposium, but it is precisely the same sort of argument that any substantive critic of Neo-Darwinism keeps running into from the Neo-Darwinians:

Combinations of different genes occur such that every individual is a unique com­bination, and the selective assay of the value of each random mutation is performed simultaneously in this framework for thou­sands of mutations at a time. The accep­tance of the neo-Darwinian concept of evo­lution appears to be eminently valid on this basis. However, a critical feature is the occurrence of mechanisms for genetic com­bination and recombination, and a major criticism of the neo-Darwinian concept which has been raised at this meeting is premised on the lack of such a mechanism in the initial steps of the evolution of a “sense” sequence of a polypeptide or poly­nucleotide from an initially “nonsense” sequence. It does not, however, seem an ex­treme extrapolation from the known facts of nucleic acid replication and transcription to envisage that combination and recom­bination are inherent features of polynu­cleotides, and the evolution of “sense” sequences then becomes a process of reason­able probability.
– Dr. Alex Fraser, Professor of Genetics, University of California Davis, California

Let’s break the argument down into its component parts:

  1. There is no mechanism. This is readily admitted.
  2. This lack of a mechanism renders the hypothesis impossible.
  3. But it doesn’t strike the Neo-Darwinian true believer to be an extreme extrapolation to imagine what this nonexistent, never-observed mechanism could be if it existed, which it doesn’t.
  4. And if we simply imagine that this nonexistent mechanism existed, then the proposed process that requires it in order to function becomes theoretically possible.
  5. Therefore, the process works as imagined

What sort of philosophical ineptitude and logical retardery is this? Who is stupid enough to accept this as a legitimate argument, let alone an established fact? This isn’t science, reason, logic, or math, it’s just maleducated handwaving combined with wishful thinking. They’re playing poker with Uno cards.

Evolution isn’t science. It isn’t even philosophy or religion. It’s just the vacuous rhetoric of the innumerate, as even its leading champions were forced to admit at the end of the 1966 symposium.

I hope the biologists have shown the physicists that evolutionary theories are not totally vacuous. I think the physicists have shown us that they are certainly as yet very incomplete, and I think we are ready to realize they are very incomplete.
– Dr. C. H. Waddington, Institute of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh

DISCUSS ON SG

May the Fourth

Owen Benjamin comments on the nerdiest fake holiday since Kwanzaa was invented.

To celebrate May the 4th we should all appreciate what a Boomer institution Star Wars is:

  • Luke forsook his rural upbringing to take part in a political campaign he had no place in.
  • Leah was a strong independent feminist.
  • Obi-Wan was a childless hippie who devoted his life to eastern mysticism.
  • Han is a wandering deadbeat who lives with his dog and is obsessed with his car.
  • Darth Vader abandoned his family to pursue his career.
  • The robots are in an openly gay relationship.
  • Everyone treats the empire like the great evil while fully enjoying the comforts and protections it provides.

In retrospect, Star Wars may have been a much darker commentary on the realities of Clown World’s politics than most of us realized at the time.

DISCUSS ON SG