Vox Popoli

First, I must express my appreciation for Bethyada’s willingness to put up. Well done. It is all too rare in an Internet filled with people eager to express an opinion yet unwilling to actually make an actual case for what they believe. I think this is to be commended in anyone, regardless of how little I agree with them, and I would be pleased if this became a place where arguments for a wide variety of opinions were subjected to critical assault from all sides.

My vote on the matter would probably have been most precisely expressed as a 2.5, roughly between “Reasonably presented and some aspects were thought-provoking” and “Reasonably presented but completely unconvincing”. I am a Creationist only in the broad sense, by which I mean that while I am a Christian who believes in creation by intelligence rather than raw time+chance, I also believe the historical truth of the origins of Man and the Earth to be significantly stranger and less compehensible than either the Biblical literalists or the abiogenesis advocates imagine. I should point out that I have virtually no idea of what form that stranger and incomprehensible truth actually takes, but it renders me a virtual agnostic on the general issue of origins.

While I put great credence in documentary evidence, I think much of the YEC case is based on a forced literalism that is absent from most historical readings of the Bible or other historical documents. I am no more concerned about the literal seven days than I am with determining what color the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was. In my opinion, those Christians and anti-Christians who impute great significance to belief in the specifics of the events recounted in the early chapters of Genesis are largely missing the essential points of Christianity. Since I am skeptical of the crude imprecision of secular scientists as they make wild assumptions about events they did not witness, it should surprise no one that I am equally skeptical of the attempts of the theologically inclined to impute very specific meanings to events neither they nor the author of Genesis witnessed either. And since we do not understand either God or His ways, there is absolutely no chance that we can reasonably hope to properly understand the information He has communicated to us through generations of men who did not understand it either. If the first generation Christians, many of whom were there and lived through the relevant events, saw the truth of Jesus Christ as though through a glass darkly, how much more obscure must the truth of Genesis be to those of us who live today?

As others have commented, Bethyada did a much better job of communicating what YEC was and what it was not than he did in actually making a case for it. While that was in line with his clearly stated intention, the title turned out to be somewhat of a misnomer as he did not spend much time on the defense that was previously indicated to be the subject. I also thought that more positive evidence in support of his position was in order; there was little to indicate any specific young age and one simply can’t reach “less than 10,000 years” even upon proving “not 4.5 billion years”. But, he did show that there are legitimate reasons to look with a skeptical eye upon the conclusions about the age of the Earth and the age of Man that are so flimsily supported by oft-contradictory sciences.

All in all, I thought it was a reasonable first effort and I expect that everyone will learn how to make continually more effective cases going forward. So, I’m pleased to give Bethyada the privilege to call out someone on a PUOSU at his discretion in the future. In the meantime, I would welcome suggestions on what the next topic should be and who should present it. I know there’s at least one individual who is willing to post on Calvinism, which would parallel nicely with the coming continuation of the Omniderigent-Aprevistan discourse, (and I imagine that the PDF will be most attractively formatted), but perhaps there are others interested in different topics worth considering as well.

The generation of idiots aka Baby Boomers have to be the most trivial, most foolish, most contemptible generation in the history of the planet. Gail Collins explains one of the many reasons why:

The Woodstock-mania must drive young people crazy since it is yet another reminder that the baby-boom generation is never going to stop talking about the stuff it did, and that when they are old themselves there will probably still be some 108-year-old telling them how everybody slept in the mud but that it was worth it because Janis Joplin sounded so awesome and the people were all mellow.

It was a concert to which a bunch of young adults went 40 years ago. BFD. And yet, the Idiot Generation is still rambling on and on about it as if it was ever actually significant to anyone or anything, let alone history. Gibbon wept. Can you imagine The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with a long chapter entirely devoted to the seminal importance of a well-attended concert? Actually, I suppose I can, but where was the Belisarius of Woodstock when the world needed him?

The Idiot Generation is the first and only generation to fail to grow out of their teenage years. They don’t drive the rest of us crazy, they have simply caused us to conclude that they are, and have always been, collectively nuts. This goes well beyond the usual parent-child divide; every generation of teenagers believes it invented sex, but the Baby Boomers are the only ones who still believe it as obese, grey-haired, rock-n-rolling AARP members. Instead of going to a concert, my grandfather’s generation went off to war in their teens, kicked the asses of the Nazis and Imperial Japanese, came home to build the richest economy in the world, and never once appeared to worry about being cool, much less what anyone happened to think of them. Meanwhile, we have the inevitable avalanche of “60 is the New 35!” articles to anticipate next year. What a bunch of historical losers.

On to more important matters. I think the acquisition of Michael Vick by the Eagles is a great move. Donovan McNabb is basically the plus version of Vick, a little less athletic and a little more accurate, and he seldom plays 16 games in a season. Andy Reid may be a fat bastard, but he’s a tough, non-nonsense, fat bastard and he won’t permit any media circuses. I’ve always hated the massive and ludicrous overrating of Vick by the sportswriters – he was never, ever going to “reinvent” the quarterback position – but he’s got great utility in a Slash/Wildcat role and as a backup to McNabb. Nice move by the Eagles as it makes a strong team even stronger.

The Vikes look very good, especially if the Williams Wall ends up avoiding their four-game Starcaps suspension. Sage Rosenfels isn’t going to be an all-pro, but everyone keeps forgetting that he doesn’t have to be for the Vikings to be significantly improved. A B- quarterback is a massive improvement over the collection of D+ players that have been taking the snaps over the last four years. And yes, I’m still irked that they didn’t go after Drew Brees when he was available.

Speaking of the NFL, DJ Gallo’s theory about the evil genius’s master plan holds together just a little too well to be entirely dismissed….

What’s the feeling on the VPFL this year? I’m very much looking forward to the season, but I’m not feeling the burning fantasy fever this year. I don’t know why.

And finally, while there are funnier things than handicapable lesbian sciff-dorks freaking out about a casting call for a Stargate Universe episode that involves temporary body switching, there aren’t very many. And the endless crying about stereotypes… I recommend doing what straight white men do when they get tired of “entertainment” that portrays them as clueless, bumbling fools in endless need of salvation by smart, independent women, wisecracking children, noble negroes, saintly homosexuals in loving, monogamous relationships who would never DREAM of visiting a bathhouse, and now, apparently, quadriplegic body-swappers of unreliable Sapphic inclination: ignore it and create stories that appeal to you.

Next week’s quiz will be on Chapter 10: The New Age: We’re All Fascists Now.

It appears I may have significantly underestimated the amount of failed bank deposits in 2009 when I projected they would triple the 1931 level:

Missed payments by consumers, builders and small businesses pushed 72 lenders into failure this year, the most since 1992. More collapses may lie ahead as the recession causes increased defaults and swells the confidential U.S. list of “problem banks,” which stood at 305 in the first quarter….

Excluding the stress-test list, banks with nonperformers above 5 percent had combined deposits of $193 billion, according to Bloomberg data. That’s almost 15 times the size of the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund at the end of the first quarter.

$193 billion is 2.56 percent of total US bank deposits. Added to the $37 billion that have already failed this year, that would bring the 2008-2009 total to 6.26 percent, which is triple the 1930-1932 total… in fact, it would be nearly 57 percent more than the total failed bank deposits in the THREE years from 1930-1932.

The danger with the deposit insurance approach is that it keeps the bank panic problem under wraps until the FDIC runs out of money and all of the panic it was designed to prevent is unleashed at once in the ensuing chaos. If this is “recovery”, can you imagine what a “depression” would look like? Oh, and about that “guarantee”:

TITLE IX–FULL FAITH AND CREDIT OF FEDERALLY INSURED DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS

SEC. 901. REAFFIRMATION OF SECURITY OF FUNDS DEPOSITED IN FEDERALLY INSURED DEPOSITORY INSTITUTIONS.

(a) FINDINGS.–The Congress finds and declares that–

(1) since the 1930’s, the American people have relied upon Federal Deposit insurance to ensure the safety and security of their funds in federally insured depository institutions; and

(2) the safety security [sic] of such funds is an essential element of the American financial system.

(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.–In view of the findings and declarations contained in subsection (a), it is the sense of the Congress that it should reaffirm that deposits up to the statutorily prescribed amount in federally insured depository institutions are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.

I can’t help but notice that “it is the sense of the Congress that it should reaffirm” != “it is the case that”. Especially when the original affirmation was a non-binding joint resolution. (H.R. Con. Res. 290) It’s a statement of intent, not a legal guarantee.

A PhD concocts a theory:

My theory—call it the “Oakley effect”—is that really smart people often don’t know how to accept and react constructively to criticism. (A neuroscientist might say they “have underdeveloped neurocircuitry for integrating negatively valenced stimuli.”) This is because smart people are whizzes at problems that only need one person to figure out. Indeed, people are evaluated from kindergarten through college prep SATs on the basis of such “single solver” problems. If you are often or nearly always right with these kinds of problems, your increased confidence in your own abilities would be accompanied by an inadvertent decrease in your capacity to deal with criticism. After all, your experience would have shown that your critics were usually wrong.

I think this is largely true, especially for those educated in a scholastic environment where self-esteem was given precedence over actually being correct. It also explains the rapid retreat to “consensus” on the part of those who subscribe to mainstream ideas since they have no capacity for accepting or even understanding criticism of that which they have never bothered to question themselves. Of course, the “Oakley effect” doesn’t apply to me and other contrarians in various fields because we not only expect criticism, we know that it is an inherent part of taking a position that is outside or contrary to the current groupthink.

Personally, I very much like substantial criticism, even though it really annoys me when I get something wrong because I failed to take an obvious variable into account. I only get annoyed with critics when they bring up ludicrously obvious objections that were either taken into account or have nothing to do with what I’m saying. One of the great pleasures of my discourse on TENS with Scott Hatfield was the fact that even if he didn’t always understand the specifics of certain criticisms of the theory, he fully grasped that they were not only of a different nature than the norm, but the difference between a skeptic and an opponent as well.

“So, your argument basically amounts to something like this: “Evolution, meh. It’s the best thing we’ve got, right now. I hope something better comes along, someday. I just can’t imagine partisans on either side of this debate getting that worked up over that argument.”

I would have used the word “expect” rather than hope, and said it’s “all” we’ve got rather than “the best thing” but that summary is essentially correct. After all, there’s no question that the predictive uselessness of TENS is less materially harmful to me and everyone who reads this blog than the predictive uselessness of the General Theory and its practical Neo-Keynesian offshoots.

On a tangential note, I suspect it’s probably easier for anyone who has ever had any success trading in the financial markets to be comfortable with contrarian positions for the obvious reason that taking a contrarian position at the right time is very definition of “buy low, sell high”, which is one of the most effective ways to make money short of convincing the government to give you billions of tax dollars in order to prevent the sky from fallingeconomy from collapsing. In the equity and commodity markets, uniform consensus is usually a reliable indicator that everyone is about to get seriously scalped. So, not only is “scientific consensus” not science, it tends to be inherently dubious from the perspective of those see the regular shortcomings of consensus.

The amusing thing about those who tell me that I should harbor more respect for Darwin and TENS due to its long decades of mass acceptance by the scientific community is that I am presently at work in helping overturn an errant theory or two that are older, more materially significant, and more broadly accepted than anything Darwin ever wrote about natural selection or common descent. So, I’m probably among the very last individuals to whom an Appeal to Ancient and Accepted Authority should be made. And yes, I expect truckloads of criticism, both substantive and shallow.

This is an opportunity to weigh in on how you thought Bethyada did in presenting his defense of YEC.

I’ll post an update with my own thoughts on Bethyada’s post later. And if you’re voting, be sure to explain your rationale for your rating.

How did Ken Burns come to bypass this inspiring tale of intrepid African-American courage in favor of national parks?

And do you know who else liked national parks? That’s right. Hitler.

The stone has been squeezed dry:

Red hot auto sales under the U.S. government’s “cash for clunkers” incentive began to cool as dealer inventories tightened and showroom traffic showed signs of leveling off from its frantic pace of a week ago.

The funny thing about this reporting is that this supposedly “red hot” and “frantic” activity only drove the “best annualized rate” of car sales to a little more than half the 2002 rate. Those of you who recall what happens after the demand curve snaps back should have a pretty good idea of what is in store for auto sales this fall.

Debate-phobic PZ Myers had barely finished boldly running away when he attempted to publicly confront a creationist on the radio:

I tried to call in…. Unfortunately, the phone lines are locked up solid — you guys are all calling in, aren’t you? I got through! What a waste — he simply denied the evidence that salt levels are in a roughly steady state, and then to my vast amusement, tossed in his strongest argument: PZ Myers is an atheist. Can you say ad hominem, boys and girls?

Now, let’s consider the recent history:

1. PZ asserted that a self-determination that another individual is an Unworthy Opponent or a crank is a legitimate reason to avoid defending one’s beliefs from them in a public venue.

2. PZ also asserted that the radio is not a legitimate venue for rational debate.

3. PZ repeatedly ran away rather than defend his own beliefs about the nonexistence of gods and the scientific evidence for evolution in public against my verbal or written counterarguments.

4. PZ then attempted to confront a creationist by the name of Ken Ham on the radio.

Needless to say, this behavior has undermined every excuse that Pharyngulans produced last week to cover PZ’s very brave retreat. After all, why is PZ calling radio stations in an attempt to confront Ken Ham on the air when he should instead be publishing peer-reviewed scientific papers on those matters? Isn’t PZ attempting to polish his resume on the basis of Ken Ham’s fame? And isn’t Ken Ham’s ad hominem argument that PZ Myers is an “atheist” every bit as valid a reason to avoid addressing PZ’s criticism as PZ Myer’s ad hominem argument that I am a “crackpot” is to avoid mine?

The amusing thing is that on the basis of his previous assertions, we can safely conclude that PZ has finally discovered a Worthy Opponent in Ken Ham.

UPDATE – Almost as amusing as PZ wetting himself and running away again is the contorted illogic to which Pharyngulans resort in order to defend the coward:

Once again, Vox fails pathetically at the grasping of simple concepts and notions. The reason(s) why calling PZ an “atheist” is an ad hominem whereas calling Vox a “crackpot” isn’t, is that Ham deliberately used “atheist” as a pejorative, not to mention as a way to “discredit” PZ (if such a thing were possible), whereas Vox … actually is a crackpot, which inherently signifies he’s not worth debating and any attempt at doing so would only amount to a waste of time and energy.

So, according to this teenage boy’s quixotic concept of “ad hominem”, PZ is actually not an “atheist” and did not use the term “crackpot” as a pejorative. It’s a rather grim statement about the average intelligence of the Pharyngula readers when they not only make use of an ad hominem argument while simultaneously decrying the technique, but demonstrate that their understanding of the argument doesn’t even rise to the level of Wikipedia. It’s astonishing how the sort of half-educated cretin who insists that someone of proven high intelligence can’t grasp “simple concepts and notions” almost invariably doesn’t even know the relevant dictionary definitions.

I suppose it’s true, though. I really don’t grasp such “simple concepts”. Of course, this is only because the simpleton has an incorrect idea of what those concepts actually are.