Author: VD

Mailvox: education and the evolutionist

MD regurgitates the common mantra of the evolutionary faithful:

You are an educated man and know as well as me that evolution has been verified in countless experiments.  I agree that the precise details of the mechanism are still open to debate.  Since you are essentially making money out of the poor uneducated civilians of your own deeply divided culture, I expect that this E-mail
may not make it to the multitude.  Until then, any
pretensions you have as a serious philosopher – until you spell out your
objections to the actual EVIDENCE of evolution, must be viewed
suspisciously.  Being an intelligent fellow, I know you know this already; hey ho.
First, I note what appears to be a popular use of the adjective “countless”, which in its most common usage apparently means “zero”.  A few days ago, I noted how spin is the hallmark of the weak argument; when someone uses the word “countless” it is often a flashing sign of where a little research will probably prove fruitful.

Second, it is because I have educated myself on the subject over the years that I am aware that there is not a single experiment or study that verifies evolution by natural selection.  Richard Dawkins very nearly admits as much in his homage to the faux science, The Greatest Show on Earth.  Strictly speaking, evolution by natural selection is not even truly scientific, because it is first and foremost a logical argument, which necessarily renders it philosophy rather than science.  At this point, there is less actual scientific evidence for it than for my hypothesis concerning the neural atypicality of atheists.

This isn’t the first time such a claim has been made. Last time, I even asked for any scientific papers that supposedly contained such evidence; after reading the first ten on the list provided, it was readily apparent that none of them contained any such thing and the individual who provided the list of papers had simply done a search for references to “natural selection”. But, for example, showing that guppies become smaller under certain predatory pressures and that this result is “consistent with evolution by natural selection” is very, very, very far from evidence that the guppies have evolved into something other than a guppy.

As I mentioned over one year ago, “I have read seven of Richard Dawkins’s ten books, two of Stephen
Gould’s, a random assortment of books by other authors including Charles
Darwin, Marc Hauser and Daniel Dennett, around 50 published papers
which relate to natural selection in some way, and more than 20 years
worth of magazines such as Natural History and New Scientist.  This doesn’t make me any sort of expert on the subject. But I should think it tends to indicate that I am not completely
uninformed about it. And it’s certainly ironic to be repeatedly
accused of ignorance when not having read any economists from Turgot to
Tobin or theologians from Tertullian to Craig ever seems to prevent
credentialed Cult of Darwin members from opining authoritatively on
economics or theology.” 

How many of the champions of evolution who claim I don’t know what I’m taking about with regards to evolution can claim to have read as much on the subject?  How many have even read On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life? And how many of the biologists who don’t hesitate to spout off on economic matters can claim to have read even half as deeply in the field of economics?

I have repeatedly spelled out my objections to evolution and the actual evidence for it.  First, the evidence doesn’t exist.  Second, the historical timelines that purportedly support it are dynamic.  Third, evolution is a complete failure as a predictive model.  Fourth, it is scientifically and technologically irrelevant; where is the evolutionary engineering.  Fifth, theoretical epicycles are increasingly appearing.  Sixth, it is a repeated failure as an explanatory model.  Seventh, there is a long track record of scientific fraud attached to it.

I have no pretensions of being a serious philosopher.  Quite the contrary, I am merely an intellectual dilettante who takes even his most cherished beliefs with a grain of salt.  But even if I did have such pretensions, my skepticism concerning the Theorum of Evolution by (probably) Natural Selection, Biased Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow would not be a strike against me, it would be a mark in my favor. Regardless, I have no problem with my opinions and assertions being viewed suspiciously. If you can find the flaw in the argument, that’s great. Point it out to me, I won’t hesitate to agree and either revise or recant the argument, so long as the flaw is actually there.

That being said, if there is a book on the subject of evolution that an evolutionist feels is missing from my education on the subject, then by all means, I encourage them to send me an epub.  I will read it.  I may even review it.  Of course, there is always the possibility that in doing so, I will point out the obvious errors it contains.

Europe is SERIOUSLY bankrupt

This award by the Nobel committee strikes me as the equivalent of desperately rooting through the couch, searching for change to pay the repo man:

The European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, providing a feel-good moment for the economically distressed bloc at a time when its post-national vision is losing traction at home and abroad.  The accolade comes as the financial crisis threatens the EU’s signal achievement, the euro, and the rise of powers such as China, India and Brazil challenges the European model of rules-based cooperation with nation-states handing sovereign rights to a central authority.

“This is in a way a message to Europe that we should do everything we can to secure what has been achieved and move forward,” Thorbjoern Jagland, head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told reporters in Oslo after awarding the 8 million- krona ($1.2 million) prize. “We have to keep in mind what has been achieved on this continent and not let the continent go into disintegration again. We know what it means: the emergence of extremism and nationalism once again.”

The Peace Prize has always been about mindless optimism.  But it used to concern itself with actual deeds and accomplishments.  Now, with the recent awards to President Barack “Seven Wars” Obama and the Euzis of the European Union, it looks more like the triumph of deranged wishful thinking than anything else.  And it does tend to confirm the opinion of long-time EU skeptics who always believed the purpose of the Union was to leash the German military rather than build a common market.

I found this to be the most cogent take on the absurdity: 

“Giving the EU a peace prize is at best premature, like knighting Sir
Fred Goodwin in the middle of the mad boom. We have no idea how the
experiment to create an anti-democratic federation will end. Hopefully
the answer is very peacefully, but when Greek protesters are wearing
Nazi uniforms, and Spanish youth unemployment is running at 50 per cent,
a look at history suggests there is always the possibility of a bumpy
landing.

Daftest of all is the notion that the EU itself has kept the peace.
It was the Allies led by the Americans, the Russians and the British who
defeated and disarmed the Germans in 1945. The German people then
underwent the most extraordinary reckoning, transforming their country
into an essentially pacifist society. The EU had very little to do with
it. Throughout that period it was Nato, led by the Americans and
British, which kept the peace in Western Europe.”

On the radio

I’m on the Brian Greenberg show at 5 EST again.  WNJC 1360 AM in Philadelphia.  Here is the download link to the MP3.  If anyone is up for transcribing it, please say so here in the comments in order to prevent any duplicate efforts.  I’ll post it here once it’s been sent to me.

Requesting reviewers

I will be announcing two new works of fiction on Monday, both set in the world of Summa Elvetica.  I’d like to get some reviews of the first one up on Amazon over the weekend, so I’m giving away 30 electronic review copies of the forthcoming 50-page(1) novella to those who are a) interested in my fiction, b) willing and able to post reviews on Amazon, and, c) not the Anklebiter of Many Names.

I’m not asking for mindless puffery or anything like that, just your honest perspective on the novella.  So, if you’re interested, please fire off an email to me and I’ll send you the same epub that will be available Monday from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.  If you don’t have an eReader, that’s not a problem, you can use Calibre to read it on your computer.

UPDATE: Okay, the thirty review copies are all spoken for.  Thanks very much to everyone who responded so readily.

(1)  Page count isn’t really meaningful for an ebook, but the novella is 20,000 words.  At the standard 400-word page of a trade paperback, that’s about 50 pages.

Evolution and a potential rabbit

About five years ago, I publicly predicted that genetic science will eventually rule out the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis and the Theorum of Evolution by Natural Selection.  Now, it would appear that we have a potential mechanism for doing precisely that without needing to discover J.S. Haldane’s hypothetical rabbits in the Precambrian:

Few researchers have given credence to claims that samples of
dinosaur DNA have survived to the present day, but no one knew just how
long it would take for genetic material to fall apart. Now, a study of
fossils found in New Zealand is laying the matter to rest — and putting
paid to hopes of cloning a Tyrannosaurus rex.

After cell death, enzymes start to break down the bonds
between the nucleotides that form the backbone of DNA, and
micro-organisms speed the decay. In the long run, however, reactions
with water are thought to be responsible for most bond degradation.
Groundwater is almost ubiquitous, so DNA in buried bone samples should,
in theory, degrade at a set rate.

By comparing the specimens’ ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the
researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means
that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the
backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of
the remaining bonds would have gone; and so on.

The team predicts that even in a bone at an ideal
preservation temperature of −5 ºC, effectively every bond would be
destroyed after a maximum of 6.8 million years. The DNA would cease to
be readable much earlier — perhaps after roughly 1.5 million years, when
the remaining strands would be too short to give meaningful
information.

Now, cloning a dinosaur or other ancient species from theoretically nonexistent DNA would not be a directly conclusive debunking of evolution, but would be a sufficiently devastating blow to the evolutionary timelines as to render it every bit as temporally dubious as it appeared when its earliest advocates were worrying about how the time-consuming process could have taken place in only 6,000 years.

I would be interested to hear from those who seriously subscribe to the theory of evolution and learn if, given this announcement of a 521-year DNA half-life, the successful cloning of a dinosaur known to be from a historical epoch well before the 2-million year readability limit would be enough to cause them to abandon their belief in the theory.  And if not, would the discovery of rabbit fossils in the Precambrian be enough to do it?

Don’t Like, don’t Want

Rather like politicians, the very last companies one should trust with one’s data are those who go to the most trouble to gather it:

When Facebook Inc. (FB) filed its proposal Feb. 1 to go public, it touted the effectiveness of ads linked to customers’ friends, citing research from Nielsen, the audience-counting company.  Barbara Jacobs, an assistant director for corporation finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, was skeptical, as she and her staff vetted the filing to ensure Facebook had disclosed all material information to investors. The claim appeared to be drawn from marketing materials, not a Nielsen study, she wrote to Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman, 42.

She gave him an ultimatum: Produce the study and provide Nielsen’s consent for use of the data — or don’t use it, she wrote to Ebersman on Feb. 28. Facebook dropped the reference after initial resistance.

Facebook isn’t the most evil company in the world, but they were birthed in iniquity and things have only gone downhill from there.

The distaste for debate

It is interesting, is it not, how fear and loathing of debate pervades the Left:

Not to put too fine a point on it, professor McKenzie looked
terrified. When this distinguished economics prof had invited me to give
a lecture entitled “Is CO2 Mitigation Cost-Effective?” at Southeastern
Louisiana University, the provost had called him in to ask why
professors worldwide had written demanding that I be disinvited.

Disinvitation is a favorite debate-stifling technique of the left. A
couple of years ago, when Prince Philip invited professor Ian Plimer to
give the annual Duke of Edinburgh’s Lecture at Buckingham Palace
explaining why global warming is a scam, the Children’s Coalition went
into conniptions. Within weeks and without explanation, Ian was rudely
disinvited.

Regardless of whether it is Al Gore, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, or the vast and corpulent mass of feminists, the Left has an observable tendency to shun debate.  They assert many different reasons for doing so, but the truth is always revealed by their seemingly contradictory willingness to debate the incompetent and the overmatched.

Contrast with this the readiness of those on the right, even the most hapless, to publicly engage with those with whom they disagree.  I don’t think much of Gary North and his homoerotic arguments – no one actually wants to poke a “gun” in his rotund “belly” – but I do give him credit for being willing to at least attempt to engage my ideas concerning the intrinsically inimical nature of free trade.

One of the things that has been interesting to observe over time is the way that the heated attacks on me, both in public and via email, have all but disappeared even though my overall readership has never been larger.  Why is this?  My theory is this is because most of my critics, be they atheists, feminists, evolutionists, or free traders, have learned they simply cannot win in a direct confrontation.  They can’t openly criticize my ideas because they have learned, much to their surprise, that they cannot adequately defend their own.

As Aristotle pointed out more than two thousand years ago, even at the rhetorical level, the side more closely approximates the truth will tend to win out, because it is easier to argue when your arguments are based on truth rather than falsehood.  Events will always ultimately prove the arguments of the global warmers, the godless, the female supremacists, the socialists, the Keynesians, and the monetarists to be false because their ideas are false.  This is why a good memory is one of the most lethal weapons against them and why it is so easy to win debates against them, as given enough time, they are going to contradict themselves. 

Why?  Because they have no choice.  Being false, their positions have to be dynamic, which means they can never hope for any significant degree of consistency.  This is why ex post facto revision and double-talk are the hallmarks of the Left, and is why the first thing Leftists do when they are in a position of power is to erase history and attempt to silence any voices capable of calling attention to their fictions and contradictions.

People have occasionally asked me how I so readily identify the weak points in an opponent’s arguments.  It’s actually very simple.  Look for the spin.  No matter what form it takes, the spin is only there to obfuscate the falsehood.  Expose that, and you not only expose the falsity of the argument, but also strike a blow against the credibility of the individual presenting it.  If longtime readers have learned anything here, I hope it is the ability to see through the incessant spin and strike to the heart of the deceit.

Democratic panic

Andrew Sullivan’s desperation is palpable:

The Pew poll is devastating, just devastating. Before the debate, Obama had a 51 – 43 lead; now, Romney has a 49 – 45 lead. That’s a simply unprecedented reversal for a candidate in October. Before Obama had leads on every policy issue and personal characteristic; now Romney leads in almost all of them. Obama’s performance gave Romney a 12 point swing! I repeat: a 12 point swing.

Romney’s favorables are above Obama’s now. Yes, you read that right. Romney’s favorables are higher than Obama’s right now. That gender gap that was Obama’s firewall? Over in one night….  Seriously: has that kind of swing ever happened this late in a campaign? Has any candidate lost 18 points among women voters in one night ever? And we are told that when Obama left the stage that night, he was feeling good. That’s terrifying. On every single issue, Obama has instantly plummeted into near-oblivion.

So, the media has noticed that the narcissist-in-chief is running a lazy, disinterested re-election campaign and appears to be throwing the election.  Who could possibly have imagined that would ever happen?  Who could have seen such a dramatic reversal coming?  Anyhow, we’ll know that Romney has the election in hand if he comes out strong on in the second debate and crucifies Obama on Libya and the murders of the American diplomats there.

Mailvox: continuing education

Robwbright, Esq. continues to discover that the lawyer’s approach of attempting to poison the well isn’t the wisest tactic when dealing with a superintelligence:

 Is human superintelligence armed with facts & logic a legitimate source of authority?

Before
you answer, allow me to appeal to another authority – higher than
either of us… Note that God answers the above question “No”:  He
catches the wise in their own craftiness”; and again, “The LORD knows
the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” and “Therefore let no
one boast in men.”

A wise (and pretty intelligent) man once said:  “But
may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus,
the Messiah, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the
world!

It is interesting that you always call out someone when
they appeal to their own authority, but you CONSTANTLY appeal to and
boast about your own superintelligence and consider that acceptable
behavior.

Will you directly answer the question “Yes” or “No”. It should be a simple question for a superintelligence to answer.

It most certainly is a simple question.  Is “human superintelligence armed with facts and logic” a legitimate source of authority?  No, of course not.  Neither are royal bloodlines, academic credentials, or guild licenses.  None of these things are conclusively determinative of the truth.  But what robwbright quite amusingly reveals in his attempt to impugn my credibility here is that he doesn’t even know what an appeal to authority is.

This is readily apparent due to his claim that I “CONSTANTLY” appeal to the authority of my own superintelligence.  This is absolutely and totally false.  I will go so far as to assert that I have never once appealed to the authority of my intelligence in the 11-year history of my WND column or the 9-year history of this blog.  I should welcome the citation of any evidence that purports to prove otherwise.

Now, it is certainly true that I rub the oft-demonstrated fact of my superior intelligence in the face of my critics, for the reason I have often explained.  Both the political Left and the militant atheists regularly resort to the logical fallacy of appealing to the authority of intelligence; in fact, atheists even utilize it in a bizarre and illogical argument against the existence of God.  My overt assertion and subsequent demonstration of an even higher degree of intelligence than most of them can muster thereby removes one of their favorite intellectual weapons from their arsenal and tends to make them look foolish when they attempt to use it to dismiss me in the manner that they dismiss so many others they attack.

This is why you will often see them theorizing that I must be crazy, because they are so attached to their logical fallacy that they literally cannot grasp that someone can be more intelligent than they are and nevertheless reject their left-liberal ideology or their godless scientism… even though it has been statistically demonstrated that there are more high IQ theists than atheists.  IQ-flaunting is a useful rhetorical device that trumps a common rhetorical argument, nothing more.  And it is obviously an effective one, as most of my critics eventually get around to complaining about it sooner or later.

What robwbright tried to do here is the clever legal tactic known as “I know you are but what am I?”.  This is the second time he has unsuccessfully tried to attack my intellectual credibility in defending the legal system against my charges of corruption, while repeatedly engaging in the logical fallacy of appealing to his own experience.  Because lawyers are hierarchical credentialists prone to thinking they are more intelligent than everyone else, they are particularly susceptible to the same rhetorical baiting that so easily discombobulates the leftists and the atheists.

No one who is truly intelligent ever appeals to that intelligence because he knows that there is always someone smarter out there, and because he is confident that he can make his logical case based on the relevant facts.  I’ve already shown how  logic dictates robwbright’s claim that legislative law always trumps interpretive rulings MUST be incorrect, given that a) there is a long and sordid history of interpretive rulings trumping legislative law, and, b) the obvious distinction between “an interpretive ruling based on legislative law” and “an interpretive ruling that the judge pretends to have been based on legislative law”.

Finally, I have two return questions for robwbright.  First, are you an Officer of the Court?  Second, when you are in the courtroom, is the law what the presiding judge declares it to be?