Category: Uncategorized

VPFL Week 9

86 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (3-5-0)
77 Greenfield Grizzlies (5-3-0)

49 GroverBeach Quixotes (4-4-0)
46 Moundsview Meerkats (5-3-0)

64 Green Reverends (4-3-1)
61 RR Redbeards (2-5-1)

67 MS Swamp Spartans (4-4-0)
61 Bailout Banksters (4-3-1)

86 Bane Sidhe (4-4-0)
80 Macau Marauders (3-4-1)

That was disappointing. I’d given up on Week 8 before the season even started, given that 4 of my starters were on a bye week. But a good performance from Foster and Turner and a solid one from Christian Ponder substituting for Aaron Rodgers would have sufficed to do the trick… if the doggone Dallas kicker had scored more than one of the 10 points projected. C’est le NFL.

Mailvox: what am I missing here?

Speaking of interlocutors, one of my occasional atheist emailers sent this in response to yesterday’s Mailvox. MD wrote:

‘ . . . the moment they decide to attempt to convince others that they are correct, they become targets.’

Never has there been a greater endorsement of the ‘new atheist’ movement than that last sentence! You’re cleverer than saying weak stuff like that.

I genuinely do not understand the point he is making here. The idea would appear to be that the New Atheism has made targets of Christians and other evangelical theists because they are incorrect. But I don’t see that this is the observable case at all. It seems to me if that X is attempting to convince others he is correct and Y decides to make X a target in response, the onus is therefore on Y to show that X is incorrect.

So, where do Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or any of the New Atheists ever attempt to show that Billy Graham or John Wesley or Thomas Aquinas are incorrect? They very seldom attack anything that is even remotely recognizable as Christian theology, preferring instead to take on what appear to be poorly remembered Sunday School versions of it. The Courtier’s Reply of PZ Myers – which, to be fair, other New Atheists besides Richard Dawkins cannot be assumed to endorse – outright attempts to justify atheists knowing nothing about what they are so ineptly criticizing.

I even remarked on this bizarre failure to actually address the most basic Christian theology in TIA: “While Harris doesn’t once cite minor Christian intellectual figures such as Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Wesley, G. K. Chesterton, or even C. S. Lewis, he does find it relevant to provide one reference to Tim LaHaye, thirteen references to Hitler, Himmler, and Hess, and six whole pages dedicated to Noam Chomsky. Because, after all, no one is more suited to explain the Christian faith quite so well as an elderly author of pop religious fantasies, a trio of dead Nazis, and a left-wing Jewish linguist.”

Now Dawkins does mention Aquinas and the Five Proofs in The God Delusion, but he does little more than cry “infinite regress” and demonstrate that he has missed the point of them. (I did like his point about the natural terminator, although it doesn’t actually serve to refute any of the Five Proofs since they concern beginnings rather than ends.) He also shows that he has never actually read the Summa Theologica; it is telling to note that Dawkins immediately proceeds from his cursory glance at the Five Proofs to the Ontological Argument without realizing that Aquinas rejected it more than 700 years ago in Part 1, Question 2, Article 1 of the Summa.

“OBJECTION 2: Further, those things are said to be self-evident which are known as soon as the terms are known, which the Philosopher (1 Poster. iii) says is true of the first principles of demonstration. Thus, when the nature of a whole and of a part is known, it is at once recognized that every whole is greater than its part. But as soon as the signification of the word “God” is understood, it is at once seen that God exists. For by this word is signified that thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. But that which exists actually and mentally is greater than that which exists only mentally. Therefore, since as soon as the word “God” is understood it exists mentally, it also follows that it exists actually. Therefore the proposition “God exists” is self-evident.

REPLY TO OBJECTION 2: Perhaps not everyone who hears this word “God” understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body. Yet, granted that everyone understands that by this word “God” is signified something than which nothing greater can be thought, nevertheless, it does not therefore follow that he understands that what the word signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally. Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God does not exist.”

So, it seems to me that far from being the greatest endorsement of the New Atheist movement, my statement demonstrates its impotence, its ignorance, and its intellectual dishonesty.

They’re not all wrong

Harvard students walk out of Greg Mankiw’s basis economics class:

Today, we are walking out of your class, Economics 10, in order to express our discontent with the bias inherent in this introductory economics course. We are deeply concerned about the way that this bias affects students, the University, and our greater society.

As Harvard undergraduates, we enrolled in Economics 10 hoping to gain a broad and introductory foundation of economic theory that would assist us in our various intellectual pursuits and diverse disciplines, which range from Economics, to Government, to Environmental Sciences and Public Policy, and beyond. Instead, we found a course that espouses a specific—and limited—view of economics that we believe perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society today.

A legitimate academic study of economics must include a critical discussion of both the benefits and flaws of different economic simplifying models. As your class does not include primary sources and rarely features articles from academic journals, we have very little access to alternative approaches to economics. There is no justification for presenting Adam Smith’s economic theories as more fundamental or basic than, for example, Keynesian theory.

On the one hand, this protest makes no sense. They’ll get no shortage of Keynesianism from Mankiw, even if most of the explicit Keynesianism won’t be provided until a subsequent macro class rather than in what is Harvard’s equivalent of Econ 101. But whether you prefer to describe Mankiw as a neoclassical or a monetarist, he’s still a Samuelsonian attempting to manage the economy in macroeconomics terms. He’s a Keynesian heretic, and would be better described as a quasi-Keynesian than an anti-Keynesian, Steve Keen’s opinion on the correct categorizations notwithstanding.

On the other, they’re absolutely right. Contra most academic programs, including the one in which I received my degree, Adam Smith is neither basic or fundamental. A proper education in economics should begin with Cantillon and Turgot.

Mailvox: it’s not about the interlocutor

AA wonders why it’s so hard to convince atheists of anything:

I’ve been debating atheists on message boards for about 5 years now and while I’m getting better at writing, I don’t think I’m seeing a lot of results. I’m just wondering, do you think there’s a place for people like me to debate on forums and then just read your blog to get ideas and material? Or is it better to carry out debates on blogs? Also –I don’t know if you have an adderall habit or what but I’m amazed at how often you post — do you do something for your attention span and work ethic?

The quote from Bartleby’s sums it up:

“He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.”
~Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

It’s a tautology. Most atheists don’t believe in God because they don’t believe in God. If you listen to their stories and read their books, it is readily apparent that most of them became atheists between the ages of 10 and 17. There are various theories concerning why this happens, but the observable fact of the matter is that their atheism is actually less rational and less based on any reasoning than the average college student’s political party identification. All the appeals to science and so forth are nothing more than ex post facto rationalizations.

Hence all the false claims about Biblical knowledge and the attacks on Sunday School theology. What passes for their knowledge is usually the dimly remembered childhood church indoctrination. I can’t think of a single atheist who has ever been able to tell me the structure of an argument from the Summa Theologica, much less the actual content of any of the 610 arguments contained within it. And the next atheist I meet to have read Tertullian or any of the Latin Fathers except Augustine will be the first. Their ignorance isn’t merely limited to Christianity either, as they seldom know anything about the sacred works or theology of other religions except perhaps a little Greek and Norse mythology.

That being said, I am entirely open to hear other explanations for why an atheist remains an atheist after having his purported reasons for becoming an atheist destroyed from actual atheists.

The reason for combating atheism isn’t to convert the atheist. You will never see any such results. That simply isn’t going to happen because no atheist will ever cease being an atheist simply because all of his rationalizations have been shown to be factually incorrect, logically fallacious, or otherwise irrational. And that’s completely fine. The reason for shooting them down over and over again is to neutralize and counteract their effect on the weak-minded, who are even less inclined to think than the average evangelical atheist. I seldom intentionally attack atheists who make no attempt to convince others that gods and the supernatural do not exist for precisely this reason; I don’t care what they believe or do not believe. Their lack of belief has no effect on me or anyone else.

But the moment they decide to attempt to convince others that they are correct, they become targets. So, my advice is to keep doing what you’re doing, keep refining and improving your arguments, and you will likely prevent dozens, if not hundreds of people, from falling for the false arguments and incorrect logic being presented by evangelical atheists.

As for the frequency of my posting, I simply make a habit of it by sticking to a schedule. Two posts per day, period. Usually, that ends up meaning three or four on weekdays. It takes very little time; the average one probably takes between 10-15 minutes, so 2-3 posts is like watching one sitcom per day. That’s not a lot of work. I’ve recently taken the same approach to my writing and it’s been very effective. In 102 days since I started writing the first novel in the Arts of Dark and Light series, I’ve written 84,269 words, leaving me exactly 2.3 days ahead of an aggressive schedule. Only another 210,731 to go…. As for adderall, I’ve never heard of it. My only drugs of choice are cappucino and vino rosso. Three cups of the former and one or two glasses of the latter daily is my limit.

As Ecclesiastes reminds us, it’s all vanity. But one hopes that even so, some of it may be useful to others and will ultimately prove to be to the glory of God.

The week in Alpha

Monday: A method for distinguishing the gamma from the superficially sentimental player courtesy of the greatest rock band of all space and time.

Tuesday: Women often fall for liars, but are liars appealing or are women simply unable to distinguish between men who are lying from men who are telling the truth?

Wednesday: The nice guys write a letter.

Thursday: Which do women find less sexually appealing, decapitation and post-mortem sex or gooey gamma romantic gestures? It’s a tough call.

Friday: Short hair is the equivalent of 30 extra pounds on a woman.

Psychology is not science

And neither are many other pseudoscientific fields with scientific pretensions. Because the credibility of science depends upon its replicability, it naturally follows that any “scientist” who does not release his data for independent review and replication is not doing science:

In a recent survey, two-thirds of Dutch research psychologists said they did not make their raw data available for other researchers to see.

Then they are witch-doctors, propagandists, and grant-seekers, not scientists. Some years ago, I wrote about the need for Open Science. But the more that I think about it, that is redundant. Because if it isn’t open, it isn’t science. To paraphrase the OpenScience Project, if you’re going to do science, you have to release the computer code too.

“Our view is that it is not healthy for scientific papers to be supported by computations that cannot be reproduced except by a few employees at a commercial software developer. Should this kind of work even be considered Science? It may be research, and it may be important, but unless enough details of the experimental methodology are made available so that it can be subjected to true reproducibility tests by skeptics, it isn’t Science.”

This was also amusing to note in light of my contention that most scientists are completely untrained in statistics.

“Also common is a self-serving statistical sloppiness. In an analysis published this year, Dr. Wicherts and Marjan Bakker, also at the University of Amsterdam, searched a random sample of 281 psychology papers for statistical errors. They found that about half of the papers in high-end journals contained some statistical error.”

A society that deserves to die

I don’t see how you could possibly reach any other conclusion:

A few years ago, Joe Therrien, a graduate of the NYC Teaching Fellows program, was working as a full-time drama teacher at a public elementary school in New York City. Frustrated by huge class sizes, sparse resources and a disorganized bureaucracy, he set off to the University of Connecticut to get an MFA in his passion—puppetry. Three years and $35,000 in student loans later, he emerged with degree in hand, and because puppeteers aren’t exactly in high demand, he went looking for work at his old school. The intervening years had been brutal to the city’s school budgets—down about 14 percent on average since 2007. A virtual hiring freeze has been in place since 2009 in most subject areas, arts included, and spending on art supplies in elementary schools crashed by 73 percent between 2006 and 2009. So even though Joe’s old principal was excited to have him back, she just couldn’t afford to hire a new full-time teacher. Instead, he’s working at his old school as a full-time “substitute”; he writes his own curriculum, holds regular classes and does everything a normal teacher does. “But sub pay is about 50 percent of a full-time salaried position,” he says, “so I’m working for half as much as I did four years ago, before grad school, and I don’t have health insurance…. It’s the best-paying job I could find.”

Now, I don’t believe in capital punishment by the state, for the obvious reason that it only encourages them. But I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree with the idea that if we’re going to have capital punishment anyway, the decision to pursue a master’s degree in puppetry should definitely qualify an individual for immediate hanging.

Mimes should be decapitated, of course. One can’t be too careful when dealing with the nasty bastards.

At this point, I can’t even find it within myself to feel the least bit sorry for Americans any longer. It would be one thing if they were foolishly going into debt while studying something useful instead of Sociology, Black Studies, Womyn’s Studies, Business, and English. But a society where people are actually paid to teach puppetry, go into debt in order to obtain master’s degrees in puppetry, and believe that what a pseudo-revolutionary movement needs is giant puppets, is quite clearly insane and should be put down at the earliest opportunity.

Fruits of the Arab Spring

Remember this martyr for his faith when the neocons are celebrating the accomplishments of their World Democratic Revolution. And remember it when Republicans are explaining why it is necessary to export democracy to the savages of the third world while simultaneously importing them throughout the West:

Arab Spring, Egyptian edition: a 17 year old Christian in a high school in Mallawi was ordered by his teacher to cover up a tattoo of a cross on his wrist. True to his faith, he refused to do so and instead exposed a crucifix that he wore around his neck. He was then beaten to death by his teacher and two Muslim students:

And lest they mistakenly conclude that the enemy of their enemy is their friend, I note that neither Jews nor atheists have proven to be any better off under Sharia.

The EU’s democracy deficit widens

No referendum for you!

A statement from Prime Minister George Papandreou scrapping the referendum on the $178 billion European bailout package has been provided to the Associated Press. “The referendum was never an end in itself,” Papandreou said. “We had a dilemma – either true assent or a referendum. I said yesterday, if the assent were there, we would not need a referendum.”

It won’t make any difference. The question isn’t whether it’s all going to come crashing down, it’s just a question of which of the many straws upon the camel’s back will be that does the trick.

My expectation is that once people realize they are not only being railroaded, but don’t even have the opportunity to protest, we’re going to start seeing the revival of the Red Brigades soon. As I told the DC radio guy who interviewed me this afternoon, it’s not the crash that concerns me, that’s inevitable and I’m just hoping to stay buckled in and enjoy the ride. It is what comes after and how the popular fury will be channeled that is worrisome.

If I was an elite strategist, that’s what I’d have focused on for the last two years, not wasting the time on playing King Canute.

A skeptic shows he’s a sucker

Whenever you encounter atheists claiming to be skeptical, rational, logical, and intelligent, you can be relatively confident that they will soon demonstrate that they are absolutely nothing of the sort. Consider these two contradictory claims from SkepticBlog:

1. “SkepticBlog is a collaboration among some of the most recognized names in promoting science, critical thinking, and skepticism.”

2. “Why has no one from Wall Street gone to jail for the financial meltdown? Bill Maher has asked this question several times on his HBO show Real Time. I have asked many experts myself, including economists, lawyers, and Wall Street traders. Answer: no one went to jail because they didn’t break any laws.”

Now, I rather liked Michael Shermer’s “The Mind of the Market” when I reviewed it a while back, but this post is almost astonishingly stupid and is so demonstrably clueless that I very much doubt Shermer has genuinely asked a single expert about this. One need look no further than the mainstream media to know that the Obama administration broke the law. Ben Bernanke broke the law. Henry Paulson broke the law. Every single “too big to fail” bank broke the law. Every bank that registered a mortage with MERS broke the law and evaded county taxes. Karl Denninger has a little list of four of the most obvious and egregious examples.

Shermer then goes on to ask “What, exactly, did these Wall Street people do that was so wrong?” That’s quite simple. Fraud, theft, forgery, money laundering, and tax evasion.

And after this preposterous demonstration of willful stupidity, the “skeptic” Shermer declares that “the government should regulate Wall Street more”. Right, because the answer to government regulators failing to enforce the law is obviously more government regulation. That’s some fine criticial thinking right there, isn’t it?

Shermer should know better. I know for a fact that he’s not as economically illiterate as this post makes him look, but it shows that he is demonstrably inept when it comes to logic. Keep this performance in mind when you consider the value of the science he is promoting and the legitimacy of his arguments concerning atheism.