Vox Popoli

Happy LeninEarth Day!

Any time a reporter uses expressions like “indisputably” and “vast majority” you should be nervous, of course, but after you’re done being nervous, you should ask to see the Greenpeace or Environmental Defense Fund press release they cribbed the assertion from. As for me, one of the virtues of age is that I can readily remember other times, not that long ago, when “the vast majority of scientists” assured us with equal conviction that we were “indisputably” on the brink of a new ice age, or that we would “indisputably” run out of oil by the year 1985, or that the Great Plains were about to become a vast desert with consequent global famines, or that by the year 2000 we would have a world population of over 20 billion souls all fighting tooth and claw for what little food and water remained, or my personal favorite, that we were “indisputably” about to run out of mineable copper, which would result in the complete collapse of all industrial economies based on electricity and electronics.

If you don’t understand the connection between Vladimir Lenin and Earth Day, try to see if you can come up with an expansion of central state power NOT supported by the so-called environmentalists. Scratch a green deeply enough and you’ll almost invariably find that they’re red on the inside. This is, of course, ironic considering what the Russian and Chinese Communists managed to do to the environment.

If you want to protect the environment, buy land and leave it alone. That’s about all you can reasonably do. But don’t think that having the government buy it for you is a reasonable substitute, as that’s about the most effective way to guarantee that it will be pillaged without mercy by the best-connected interest.

Apparently I’m to be on Sirius Satellite’s Mike Church show at 11:30 EST, in case you’re interested.

An inconvenient Lenin Day interview:

Lopez: What Denier fact could be characterized as most inconvenient for Al Gore?

Solomon: The claim that there is a consensus on climate change. This claim is based on the media’s often repeated claim that the 2000 to 2500 scientists associated with the UN’s panel endorsed the U.N.’s report. In fact, as the Secretariat of the UN panel told me, those 2500 scientists are merely reviewers of some of the hundreds of input studies that went into the mix. They endorsed nothing. There is no consensus and there never has been.

Lopez: But still, the U.N.’s work was peer reviewed, even if some of the peer reviewers disagreed.

Solomon: No, the science in the U.N. reports was not peer reviewed, as it is usually understood. As some of my deniers point out in proper scientific peer reviews the identities of the peer reviewers are kept secret, so that they can be free to make critical comments about the science without fear of recrimination. In the U.N.’s peer review, the reviewers must identify themselves to the scientists they are critiquing, discouraging many from expressing themselves frankly. It gets worse than that, though.

In a normal peer-review process, the critiques from the reviewers are public. If a scientist decides to reject a critique, he must justify his refusal. In the U.N. peer-review process, the system is turned on its head. The scientists don’t need to explain themselves. They can ignore the criticisms and no one will be able to assess if the criticism was rejected for a valid reason. The U.N.’s version of peer review does not meet the standard of professional science.

Now, I’m skeptical enough about the utility of peer review, which in many cases is little more than editing. But this fake peer review of the UN’s process makes the claims of an overwhelming “scientific consensus” in favor of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis even more laughable.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. Just how bad would the ongoing global recession be if the Kyoto Treaty had actually been globally implemented as the greens were demanding?

Jerry Pournelle considers the near-phobic reaction to intelligent design and points out a few uncomfortable historical truths about relying on the wisdom of the scientific experts. I note that I raised a similar point in TIA regarding the total absurdity of worrying about science education in a school system that can’t produce graduates that are both numerate and literate.

As to teaching “intelligent design” in schools, it doesn’t happen often. The real question is who shall decide? Local school boards, or experts? And be very careful how you answer, because there are a number of propositions of far greater practical import, such as IQ, and phonics vs. “whole word” methods of teaching children to read English, and such like that have been imposed from above by the experts on the grounds that local bumpkins shouldn’t have control since we, the experts, know what the right answers are; and we don’t want public money wasted on teaching nonsense like phonics, and having children learn the addition and multiplication tables when every expert knows that The New Math, or Fuzzy Math, is a far, far better way to teach arithmetic… And that it is far more important to have diversity in history textbooks than to have very much about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Etc….

What I don’t understand is the passion on suppressing intelligent design in the name of science. Some readers are convinced that the end of the Republic is at hand if one school district, anywhere, decides to mandate intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian Evolution. Given that the entire state of California forbade the teaching of English as a phonetic language for more than a dozen years, and still has very few teachers who understand how to teach that, which is the greater danger?

A molecular biologist writes in response:

“PLEASE don’t use my name or affiliation here on this topic—I learned long ago that I do not have a right to my own opinion in science! At least on this subject.

I very much appreciated your comments regarding the Intelligent Design – Aggressive Atheist battle royale. Your comments were nuanced and careful. This is not a new subject, and people like Dawkins and Dennett and Harris seem to feel that their own insights are fresh. Ah…not so much. But then, they aggressively dislike religion, so theological debates over the past thousand years are not part of their worldview!

Most of all—and this is something that both the IDers and AAs miss—you show humility about what you do not know. In fact, you show it regarding what humans *can* know.

The ID/fundamentalists only posit a Creator who acts in ways that make sense to people, with human motivations (and yes, some folks like Hoyle—RIP, a great man—did not fit into this category). I’m back with Greg Benford about that: “The thing about aliens is, they’re alien.” The same thing holds true for deities. We *cannot* understand the universe from quanta to quasars, genes to galaxies. At least not now.

The AAs fit the same mold. I know better than Dawkins about the limitations of evolutionary thought on a molecular level (he is not a molecular biologist, as I am). Yet his pride shows in every syllable. The Greeks had a word for this: hubris.

None of this is new, and you have a great deal to contend with at present. All I am saying is that both “sides” miss the point: we should be humble about ourselves and our place in the universe. We cannot *know* if a Creator exists. We can only *believe* if one exists, or does not. And we should definitely be humble about our own tools to probe the universe—they are sparse and primitive.

The Fundamentalists who say the most ignorant things about evolution are wrong on their side. And Dawkins and Myers and their ilk, who dare to call people of faith “stupid” (while their own atheism requires as much faith as any snake handling fundamentalist), revolt me…. All that being said, no scientist dares write what I just did above without serious consequences.”

The thing that most people don’t realize about Dawkins and Myers – to say nothing of their ilk, who are no match for the Dread Ilk, by whom they are significantly outgunned in most literal sense – is that the two men simply aren’t particularly intelligent. Seriously, the odds are very, very slim that either of them have an IQ deviating more than 2SD from the norm and both are demonstrably historical ignoramuses. By the time we finish with Thucydides here, I think I can safely promise that every single participant will know more history in far greater detail than PZ does, and while Dawkins had the benefit of a better and broader education, he clearly hasn’t done any significant reading in history since he left Hogwarts. They are both nearly flawless specimens of the overspecialized academic who is almost entirely useless outside his chosen field, which is why they embarrass themselves so reliably whenever they attempt to sally forth outside it. Face it, if you can’t figure out that the Dicky-D rap is a harsh slam on scientific arrogance, you’re simply not that bright.

The combination of moderate intelligence with a lack of a broad knowledge base means they have no ability to argue convincingly on matters outside biology; they can do little more than preach to the godless choir and thump the pulpit while loudly shouting how stupid everyone who doesn’t agree with them is. Their expressed distaste for debate and discourse isn’t born of a genuine contempt for their critics, but rather, a perfectly legitimate fear of their own intellectual shortcomings being unmasked. Consider this: despite being a mere opinion columnist, I have always been completely willing to engage in direct critical discourse with those I attack, even on intellectual ground of their choosing. PZ, on the other hand, has attacked me numerous times in the past, but has never once offered anything more substantive than baseless ad hominem attacks and meaningless insults. He’d much rather complain about his inability to sneak uninvited into a movie than defend any of his numerous theses about religion, politics, the perils facing science, or anything else.

Scientistry can’t reasonably be described as a religion proper, but it has certainly made a cult of itself in recent years. And like most cults, its adherents shriek like butchered pigs when their mindless assumptions are violated by questions.

Whoopi lets the Inconvenient Cat of Obvious out of the bag:

LESLEY: Whoopi, I think the fear the Democrats have with this issue is not because he’s a person of color. It’s because the Republicans latch onto this exact kind of argument time and again and make it work for them. As with Adlai Stevenson, with Dukakis, with Kerry, with Gore …

WHOOPI: Well, what’s the matter is the Democrats are an elitist group. That’s the truth.

I don’t know why no one ever seems to notice that these self-proclaimed champions of the little guy are always multimillionaires. There’s two logical possibilities. Either Democratic politicians are a remarkably altruistic group of people or they are even more ruthless than Republicans in shamelessly making use of those they pretend to be championing. Republicans are loathesome, but Democrats are even worse. I don’t recommend supporting either.

Los Angeles leads the way:

Los Angeles is at the leading edge of a U.S. demographic trend, with half of its workforce immigrants, many of them unskilled and speaking little English. As baby boomers retire, the same pattern will emerge across the country, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Demographers estimate that by 2025 most of the growth in the workforce will be from immigrants….

“The question is: Are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and the majority at poverty or near poverty wages?”

Wait a minute, I thought only Canadian thought criminals and whacko writers at WorldNutDaily were permitted to point out this sort of demographic doom scenario! I mean, there’s nothing wrong with Minneapolis that a few hundred thousand Somalis can’t fix, right?

Well, at least they’ll all vote Republican, because we have been assured by the Republican party leadership and their intellectual bodyguard that’s what illiterate Hispanics who don’t speak English do.

Is looking increasingly problematic:

Most of the missiles couldn’t be fired, and neither could any of the big guns. The Aegis radars key to the ships’ fighting abilities didn’t work right.

The flight decks were inoperable.

Most of the lifesaving gear failed inspection.

Corrosion was rampant, and lube oil leaked all over.

The verdict: “unfit for sustained combat operations.”

Those results turned up by an inspection by the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey — commonly known as an InSurv — would be bad enough if they came from one warship.

But they came from two. In different fleets, in different oceans. Within a week of each other. And each ship represents the Navy’s most sophisticated front-line surface combatants.

Platitudes, swagger and empty gestures are no substitute for proper logistics, maintenance, and strategic coherency.

GPB points out a simple fact:

Let’s get real here. Vox doesn’t give a shit about the kids. This is just another issue for him to complain about with the government.

That’s absolutely right. I really don’t care about the teeming Mormon spawn, and yet I defend their right to live in peace with their families and benefit from equal treatment under the law all the same. I don’t care about the Jews, but I complain about the National Socialist government’s decision to murder them and believe they have an absolute right to defend their nation. I don’t care about the Ukrainian peasants, but I complain about the Soviet government’s decision to starve them. I don’t care about most unborn children, but I argue for their right to life anyhow. What does caring about someone have to do with an acknowledgment of the blatant violation of their unalienable rights as Americans and human beings? The CPS claims to care about those kids even as they violate due process and kidnap them from their parents, just as Janet Reno still claims to care about the kids that she roasted alive at Waco.

Giving a shit and $4.75 will get you a caffeine-infused heated fluid and cylindrical paper container at Starbucks.

And promptly ignored. You already knew my opinion of democracy, right? Anyhow, we’re going with Thucydides and The History of the Peloponnesian War, since my primary purpose in taking the poll was less to pick the book and more to see if there was sufficient interest in the historical classics to bother with this Voxiversity thing. I elected not to do Human Action despite the almost alarming level of interest in it because I’m already elbow-deep in economics with the podcasts and whatnot. (By the way, those are henceforth going to be bi-weekly, since the post-interview audio adjustments take too much time.) Also, I think it would probably be wiser to start out with something more basic if/when we get around to economics. Mises makes a lot less sense if you don’t know the Keynesianism and Marxism that he is criticizing. I was a bit surprised that Clausewitz had so much support and that John Julius Norwich and Mr. Shakespeare had so little. Wilson would be fun, but I didn’t seriously think many would be interested in it.

So, now you’ve got 12 days to pick up a copy of The History of the Peloponnesian War and read through 1.115. That’s page 63 in the paperback version of The Landmark Thucydides, which I highly recommend. It’s only $17, but if you’d rather not spend the money, or would rather spend that $17 on another book of unquestionable merit, you can simply download the text in your favorite format, including audiobook, from ManyBooks. The plain text isn’t marked, so just read down to the point where Sparta and Athens conclude the Thirty Years Peace.

And yes, there will be a quiz….

WND continues to rise in the rankings:

Based on unique visitors, Nielsen breaks down news site traffic rankings as follows: CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, AOL News, New York Times, Gannett Newspapers (USA Today), Google News, Fox News, Washington Post, WorldNow, Heart Newspapers, IB Web Sites, Gannett Broadcasting, Cox Newspapers, Drudge Report, Breitbart, Netscape, Media General Newspapers, Star Tribune, GTGI Network, Townhall, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WorldNetDaily, Zwire, Daily Kos, St. Louis Post Dispatch, The Atlantic, KSL, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review.

The three things that suprise me are that people pay so much attention to Kos and National Review when they’re read by fewer people than WND, that the Drudge Report is not number one, and that the Star Tribune is so high. But I have no reason to doubt the relative ratings; I like NRO, but a link from them brings rather less traffic than one from WND.

It’s also slightly amusing because some critics still like to pull the “who is Vox Day” routine because my column appears online instead of on dead tree. They seem to forget that my WND column is far more widely read than the blog, and that it’s read by more people than ever read the nationally syndicated column that appeared in 15 papers around the country, including the Boston, Atlanta, San Jose and St. Paul papers. The unique audience numbers show that WND has a long way to go before it reaches the level of a major national news institution, but it’s already got a bigger readership than most metropolitan newspapers or national news magazines.