Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: the logic of God II

In which Passerby attempts to poke holes in the logical argument demonstrating the irrationality of his position concerning the simultaneous existence of evil and the nonexistence of God.

Well! I wasn’t expecting an entire fresh post devoted to my challenge
in that other thread. I’m so honored. Pardon my late arrival.  Okay,
first off, VD, looks like you threw a gutter ball from your second
premise, as Riki-Tiki-Tavi already sensed. Let’s have a look at it:

2.
The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a
material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be
classified.

Incorrect. The existent fact of wrongdoing/evil
does not require a material universal standard of right and wrong. The
existent fact of wrongdoing is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Good luck making a sound argument for
the nonexistence of wrongdoing. Think anyone can do it passably? I
don’t and I suspect you don’t either. So we should agree there. That’s
point number one.

Point number one is incorrect.  Notice here that Passerby is not only taking exception to my point, but to entire philosophies such as nihilism, existentialism, and, ironically enough, rational materialism.  His argument is surprisingly weak, based as it is on the self-evidence of wrongdoing.  Is it self-evident that stealing is wrong?  That not voting is wrong? 

Consider how little sense his argument makes if we substitute a non-existent fact for wrongdoing/evil.  The existent fact of unicorns
does not require a material universal standard of unicorns and not-unicorns. The
existent fact of unicorns is self-evident because the alternative is…
the nonexistence of unicorns.

If we cannot tell the difference between a unicorn and a not-unicorn, then we cannot possibly declare that unicorns do or do not exist.  But if we have established the fact that unicorns do exist, we have necessarily established a material and universal standard for what a unicorn is and what a unicorn is not.  Therefore, point number one fails and the second step in the logical argument remains standing.

Point number two. Another thing wrong
with this “necessary universal standard” claim of yours (I noticed you
used that word “standard” seventeen times in your post, so to continue
the bowling metaphor, it’s like your very bowling ball to bowl with,
without which… well, game over — but I’ll give you a dollar so you can
go play some Ms. PacMan) is that six billion people in the world could
have six billion different standards of wrongdoing, but everyone would
nonetheless agree that wrongdoing does exist in the world.

So
let’s imagine those six billion individuals’ six billion different
standards of wrongdoing can be each given a numerical value. I’m not
saying it can ever actually be done, but just go with me here. After
they’ve all been given a numerical value, they’re arranged in order on a
vertical meter with a red zone on the bottom and a green zone on the
top. Put the meter on the lowest setting of “1”. That setting belongs
to a guy who disagrees with all 5,999,999,999 people above him whom he
considers to be an increasing bunch of prissy Miss Manners types who see
wrongdoing in all kinds of ways he doesn’t. But he at least sees one
instance of wrongdoing in the world and everyone above him agrees that
he at least got one right. So it seems to me (I’m just now coming up
with this, but I’ll try to land this thing in one piece) that this
minimum setting of “1” is the standard, if anything, for the existence
of wrongdoing. Below that is “0” which represents nonexistence of
wrongdoing.

Point being, our subjectivity is flawed, but it’s far
from useless! There is, after all, communication and agreement. It’s
precisely because of our limitation as trapped individuals of
subjectivity that science is the best idea we’ve ever come up with (or
happened upon) to make gains on objectivity. To paraphrase Steven
Pinker, science is our highest, purest expression of reason.
Objectivity is perhaps an unattainable goal, but we’ve seemingly made
lots of progress toward it given our technological conquests, our
steadily decreasing rate of violence in ever larger, more complex
populations, etc. I say seemingly because a cosmic rug pulling could be
in store for us a la The Matrix at any time, but that caveat aside,
it’s our processes of communication, cooperation, record keeping,
rhetorical persuasion, experimentation, reason, science, etc. that we
arrive at standards of right and wrong be they amoral (e.g., math,
chemistry, physics) or moral. And we arrive at them, to the extent we
do, through our own shared reasoning, thank you very much. No divinity
needed or even evident. 

Point number two is not so much incorrect as irrelevant, bordering on a category error. In this section, Passerby fails to grasp that an objective standard is more than the sum of six billion subjective opinions, and in fact, no number of subjective opinions can produce an objective standard, by definition.  The more the standard is “influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice”, the less objective it can be, regardless of whether those competing feelings, interpretations, and prejudices are harmonious or not.  Existent evil/wrongdoing requires a material and universal standard, even if our subjective experience of the objective reality is different in six billion different ways.

If the readers don’t mind indulging me in following Passerby on one of his tangents, I will add that Stephen Pinker is wrong about science as he is wrong about so many things.  Science is most certainly not the highest and purest expression of reason.  Not only is it not reason at all, it was specifically conceived, developed, and utilized to replace pure reason.  This is why Science is so often at odds with Philosophy as well as Religion; Science is nothing more than the systematic codification of experience.

Mailvox: the logic of God

Passerby’s challenge somehow tends to remind me of this series of photographs.  But who knows, perhaps the stag will surprise us:

Definition of evil:  the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing

I’m an atheist and going by Merriam-Webster’s def. of evil above, I say evil exists.  According to VD, my stance is irrational. Prove it. Anyone. Show your work. Lay out the steps proving my logic is flawed. You’ll fail. I will crush you.

Well, let us see about that.  He has made his claim that his stance is rational, (which is to say that evil exists but God does not), so I’ll take up the burden of attempting to falsify it.

  1. Passerby asserts that “the fact of suffering, misfortune, and wrongdoing” exists.
  2. The existent fact of wrongdoing necessarily requires that there is a material universal standard of right and wrong by which actions can be classified.
  3. A material universal standard of right and wrong must be objective.
  4. Man’s standards of right and wrong are inherently subjective and non-universal.
  5. Therefore the objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong cannot be produced by Man.
  6. The most likely source of an inhuman, objective, material, universal standard of right and wrong is an intelligence of grand scope possessing a direct connection to the area in which that standard applies.
  7. The scope required for that inhuman intelligence to provide the universal standard implies, though it does not necessarily require, extra-universality.
  8. The most reasonable connection between the presumably extra-universal intelligence providing the standard and the area in which that standard applies is that of creator to creation.
  9. The presumably extra-universal intelligent creator that provides the objective, material, universal standard to its presumed creation is quite reasonably described as God.

This logic provides for a small degree of wiggle room here.  A being need not necessarily be either extra-universal nor the creator to successfully impose an objective standard on the universe.  However, since any act of creation that results in an observed objective standard necessarily requires the creation of a standard of some kind, the most rational conclusion is to assume that the standard observed was provided by the creator rather than by some other intelligent, inhuman entity that successfully replaced the original standard.

But I think even if the logic-dictated provider of the universal standard of right and wrong is neither the creator nor extra-universal, its observed ability to impose such a standard upon the universe suffices to justify its recognition as an existent god, at the very least, if not necessarily the Creator God or the Creator God of the Christian Bible.

Mailvox: the existence of evil

JB has a question:

I have never heard this question answered before.  If there is no God (or Devil) why is there evil?

The reason you haven’t heard it answered before is because most atheists shy away from explicitly revealing the true extent of their beliefs.  I’ve pinned a few atheists down on this, and to a man, they have admitted that they don’t actually believe in the existence of evil.  Of course, this doesn’t prevent them from making rhetorical use of the concept and insisting that it is the Christian concept of God that is truly evil and so forth.  In doing so, they are either being deceptive or inconsistent.

But the only position on evil that is consistent with rational materialism is that there is no such thing as essential evil or essential good, these are merely subjective labels that are inconsistently applied to various human behaviors and natural events.  Of course, this is not an aspect of atheism that most atheists are eager to advertise, since so many people already tend to consider them amoral or even immoral by definition.

This is one of the reasons I entitled my book on the subject “The Irrational Atheist”.  Most atheism is irrational, as the atheist attempts to reconcile his continued belief in the existence of some sort of objective good or evil while simultaneously denying the existence of its only possible source.  Of course, it’s not the irrational atheist one has to worry about, it is the rational atheist who realizes that in the absence of a lawmaker, there is no law except that which he wills.

That is the reality, though.  If there is no God, there is no good or evil.  This is also the core of my argument for the existence of God; because we materially experience evil, we must logically conclude that God exists.

Mailvox: hey, free book

Hunter Riley, the author of a book on metal investing, is giving it away until Halloween.  I get a lot of questions concerning the subject, so if you’re interested in metals, this would be a reasonable place for you to start.  He writes:

I just wrote and published a book on Amazon.com about how to start
investing in gold and silver. I am giving the book away for free for 5 days starting this Saturday 10/27 and lasting until 10/31. 
Its called Stack Silver Get Gold.  
I thought your readers might appreciate a free kindle book on how to begin investing in gold and silver without getting ripped off.

 It’s #1 in commodities and has good reviews, to say nothing of the fact that it’s impossible to beat the price.  It normally goes for $9.99.  Have a look if you’re so inclined.

Mailvox: a reason to not vote

I think we can all agree that blame for the present parlous state of the nation clearly lies with JartStar:

I had some fun today with some of the guys at work about voting. They
asked me while we were on break who I was going to vote for and I
explained that I no longer vote. The looks on their faces were priceless
and when they inquired why I offhandedly explained that I had voted my
entire life and things have steadily gotten worse, I feel bad about
that, and my voting has made the country worse. I then apologized to
them all for what I had done and the three out of the four of them went
into near hysterics.

The Israeli Jew proclaimed it would be better for
me to show up and vote randomly than not vote, and one of the two Indian
immigrants tried to pull me aside to explain that I wasn’t really the
problem.

So this is my new reason for not voting when people ask: The state
of the country to a large degree my fault and I’m stopping now before I
make things really bad.

It’s definitely a more entertaining excuse than relying on reason and being forced to endure a monologue on how Mitt Romney will preside in a TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY DIFFERENT MANNER than Barack Obama, even though the extent of their actual policy differences appears to be that Romney is slightly more enthusiastic about Israel, Wall Street, and gun control while Obama is slightly more enthusiastic about Saudi Arabia, immigration, and feminism.

Of course, as I have conclusively proven, there is absolutely no chance that your one presidential vote makes any difference at all.  None at all.  Either that one vote will not make a difference to the outcome, or in the extremely unlikely event that the outcome of the state vote rests upon your one vote, the courts will render it void by pronouncing their own verdict on who won the “election”.

The argument for random voting being better than not voting is informative, though. Such a position would indicate that to the person who holds it, the preservation of the illusion of democracy is more important than democracy itself.

Mailvox: an alternative mechanism

Stephen J. takes a logical approach in arguing for evolution by natural selection:

While this question is going to sound snarky, I can only ask our host to
believe it is meant as a genuine inquiry and hope it is answered.

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;
if nothing else, we know for a fact Homo sapiens did not.

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 don’t think it sounds snarky at all.  In fact, this is one of the first rationally competent attempts to defend evolution that I’ve ever seen presented on this blog.  Let’s look at his postulates and his logic and see where it leads us.

1)  I concur.  We know from historical documentary evidence that there are species that previously existed and are now extinct.  We can also infer from fossil evidence that there were a number of other species that previously existed and went extinct prior to the historical record.

2) I tend to agree and am willing to concur here for the sake of argument and on the basis of Occam’s Razor.  We certainly believe that homo sapiens sapiens did not exist from the beginning of the history of organic life on the basis of our current understanding of the geological and fossil records, but we cannot say that with the same degree of confidence that it is a fact in the sense that we say the Dodo is now extinct.  The problem is that there appear to be an increasing number of indications that the current geological and biological timelines are not going to hold up to future evidence, the claimed 521-year half-life of DNA being one of them.

3)  I concur, assuming (2) holds true.

4) 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.

Now, I realize how crazy this probably sounds, especially in light of my argument that Man cannot easily distinguish between God, god, demon, and alien.  But that is where Stephen’s reasonably sound logic takes us. 

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.

Mailvox: defenses of dishonesty

RobertT writes:

So anyone who has ever worked for wages at an hourly wage is inherently
dishonest? That makes sense. How else do people get paid, except for
their time? That concept is as old as time itself. Service businesses
aren’t selling a product, they’re selling their time. And they generally
get a contract before doing anything just to make sure there are no
misunderstandings. This is how I work and my clients worship the ground I
walk on.  I don’t think much of attorneys either as a group, but maybe this is a little bit over the top.

No, there is nothing inherently dishonest about working for wages at an hourly wage.  But there is a fundamental distinction between ““billable hours” and fees charged “based on the time they’ve supposedly put in rather than concrete results” and working for hourly wages.  The distinction is based on the difference between wages, which are paid by an employer who has the power to provide oversight and manage performance, and fees, which are paid by a client who is completely at the mercy of the fee-charger.

Fees of this sort are deceptive because they are based on a fundamental falsehood, which is the labor theory of value.  They are primarily the result of government intervention in the economy, which creates artificial shortages that permit the government-protected fee charger to force the client to purchase the fee charger’s time rather than the service he actually wishes to charge.

Fee chargers often resort to a deceptive defense, by claiming that they must charge for their time because they don’t know exactly how long it will take to provide the service.  This defense is belied by the fact that products and services in markets permitted to be competitive are delivered despite the fact that their time-cost is unknown.  For example, when I sign a book contract, I don’t know how long it will take to write the book anymore than a lawyer knows how long it will take to resolve a legal case.  I therefore assume part of the risk; the longer I take to write the book, the more my compensation per hour will be reduced.

The fee charger, on the other hand, not only structures the arrangement so that his client assumes all of the risk, but also leaves the client at his mercy because the only hard limits on his time cost are his conscience and the client’s solvency.  Even if the fee charger has a conscience and bills the service in the actual amount of time required to perform it, this doesn’t change the fact that the nature of the structure is intrinsically corrupt.

Logos doesn’t even attempt a defense, but tends to concur:

I’m a lawyer, and I admit that I hate just about every lawyer I’ve come
into contact with. I’m still naive enough to try to make good arguments
and win cases, but lawyers I work with abhor the possibility of closing
a matter early or letting me get credit for winning it (I even have to
fight to sign my name on my own work product, which is damn good). It
makes me sad because we are supposed to be in a noble profession that
fights for the rule of law against all who would threaten it, especially
government.

I actually have an amount of sympathy for those lawyers who entered the profession without understanding its corrupt and corrupting nature.  Neither pre-law nor law school really explicate the truth for them, but rather give it to them in small doses so that only the most perceptive law student could put into any kind of coherent perspective.  One of my best friends is a lawyer, he was fired from his first law firm due to his unwillingness to bill nonexistent hours, and he is generally a man of good conscience.  But even he sees the problematic aspects of the system.  Those individuals of good will who chose to become a lawyer may well be bothered by the genuine hatred and disdain which so many people feel for them, but then, no doubt there are nice, good, honest bankers too.  So long as he is an officer of the court, a lawyer is a sworn agent of the legal system and cannot credibly disassociate himself from it.

And finally, robwbright attempts to get lawyerly, which is always unwise when dealing with a superintelligence armed with facts and logic, at least outside the courtroom.

Now, Vox said something I find a bit ironic.  “if one doesn’t know
the difference between written law and case law, and understand how the
latter trumps the former, it’s not even possible to have an informed
opinion on the issue.”

Vox, if you’re going to rant about
something, at least get the terminology right, or YOU risk appearing as
if it’s not even possible for you to have an informed opinion about it.

By
“written law”, I assume you mean statutory law. However, that’s not a
normal/common way to say/describe it, because case law is also most
certainly written. Perhaps I misunderstand your meaning of “written
law”, but that’s not my fault, as your term “written law” is not
precise. Common law might be referred to as “unwritten law”, but that’s
not case law, either.

And no, case law most certainly does NOT
trump statutory law in any court in which I have practiced (2 states, 7
counties, District Court of Appeals, State Supreme Court, Federal
District Court and Court of Appeals).

Given that robwbright quite clearly understood the precise distinction I was making between the two distinct types of law, a distinction that the average layman does not even know exists, this is nothing more than a shallow attempt at rhetorically undermining my point while appealing to his own authority.  I used the term “written law” because I am not addressing an audience of lawyers here, and there is absolutely no need to resort to legal jargon in order to make clear the difference between the statutory laws that are written and passed by the elected legislatures, (which is what most people understand the law to be), and the non-laws that are the set of existing rulings which made new interpretations of law and can be cited as precedent, and which the lawyers in the system agree to mutually pretend are “case laws” possessed of a standing intrinsically superior to the legislative laws.

The fact that robwbright’s objection is a trivial and deceptive one can be shown by the U.S. legal jargon “black letter law”, which means “well-established case law”.  After all, statutory law is printed in black letters too… so how can anyone possibly know what “black letter law” is?  It could be statutory law, it could be case law, it could be regulatory law, right?  If we are to accept his lawyerly logic, we must assume that any judge or lawyer who uses the term “black letter law” risks appearing as if it’s not even possible for them to have an informed opinion about it.  I trust this demonstrates how feigning ignorance and confusion is a counterproductive means of attempting to rhetorically undermine an opponent, particularly when one is attempting to establish oneself as a trustworthy authority.  Henceforth, I will use the terms “legislative law” for “written law” or “statutory law”, and “interpretive rulings” for “case law”, in the interest of precision and clarity.

He then appeals to the authority of his own experience in claiming that interpretive rulings do not trump legislative law in any court in which he has practiced.  However, I have personally witnessed interpretive rulings repeatedly trump legislative law in several Minnesota and Federal District Courts, and there are no shortage of similar examples I could cite.  But since I cannot expect to win competing appeals to personal experience with a lawyer on this subject, I will have to do better than that.  Which, as it happens, is simple enough, based on logic and legal history.

Being a lawyer, robwbright must know that interpretive rulings always trump legislative law at the court’s discretion, otherwise it would not be possible for “the set of existing rulings which made new interpretations of law and, therefore, can be cited as precedent” to be so often used by the Supreme Court and other courts for the purpose of overturning legislative laws.  If we are to accept his reasoning, it is impossible for a legislative ban on abortion to be overturned… except by a subsequent action on the part of the relevant legislature.

Mailvox: certainly self-comlimentary

BB affects to be surprised:

I found this site by accident. This discussion of evolution is certainly on a low level for a site that is so deeply self-comlimentary. I am always surprised that people refuse to accept biological evolution because of its supposed implausibility, yet easily accept the idea of spontaneous human appearance. God, in this view, did not need to develop, but just “is.” The plausibility of God goes unquestioned. Said another way, the argument is that man evolved is unsupportable, but the idea that God is and was forever, self-conceiving, is logical.

By the way, I believe in God.

I suggest you apply the same argument to God and man. But I readily admit that doing so will not answer the Question that you and I both have. The old question of something out of nothing.

Color me dubious.  An affectation of disinterest, followed by a nonsensical naked assertion, followed by a complete strawman.  And notice how quickly the “defense” of evolution rapidly transitions to its scientific plausibility to a philosophical attack on God.  What I find amusing is how the Neo-Darwinian faithful continue to insist that evolution is every bit as probable no matter how much the necessary complexity is observed to have increased. 

The recent recognition – long expected by me and others – that genetics are much more complex than previously understood and that junk DNA is somehow involved in the process, to say nothing of the toppling of the “tree of life”, all significantly increase the improbability and necessary time scales of evolution by natural selection.  And yet, there hasn’t even been any attempt to account for these additional complexities, partly because evolutionary biologists are both relatively innumerate and logically challenged, but mostly because the so-called science is little more than an article of willfully blind faith.

Mailvox: the big questions

LA queries:

I had a question–do you have an opinion on the movie Airplane!?
 The
humor on this movie has always escaped me.  I’ve always found many
comedy movies to be fairly stupid but I can always suspend disbelief,
put aside logical problems in a decent sci fi or comedy movie, and find
some way to enjoy the humor even if it isn’t my normal cup of tea.
 But this movie has always been the one film I cannot stand.
 Anyway,
a friend that reads Vox Popoli and I were having a spat about it and it
made me curious if you enjoyed it or if you ever saw it, and whether
you care one way or another.

I thought Airplane had its amusing moments, but would not put it in my personal top 25 movies or even top 20 comedies.  I can stand it, but only in short doses; I’ve never been able to watch it all the way through.  Its humor is mostly of the sort that I consider to be too broad-based and obvious to be more than moderately funny even when done right.  I think an element of surprise, or at least unpredictability, is necessary to make something genuinely hilarious, and most of Airplane’s humor is entirely predictable, being based on stupid and unlikely misunderstandings.

As a writer once said that if the plot of your novel is dependent upon your characters being stupid, you don’t have an actual book.  In like manner, I don’t find humor that depends upon the characters being borderline retarded to be amusing.  And if a “humorous” pratfall is somehow involved, I am left colder than cold.  I simply don’t find people falling down, particularly in a theatrical manner, to be be funny at all.  When I see an adult laugh at someone slapping their forehead and falling down, or pretending to faint, I seriously wonder what is wrong with them.

But Airplane! does have its moments.  The “I speak jive” line is funny, although the actual execution of the jivespeak borders on the painful.  The surely/Shirley bit is almost Wodehousean and is done well in a deadpan manner that probably wouldn’t have worked nearly as well for anyone not named Leslie Nielsen.  And the short exchanges between Joey and the Captain are downright quoteworthy.  That being said, I looked at the list of what are supposedly the greatest quotes from the movie and noted that less than a quarter of them actually struck me as funny.

To me, easily the funniest movie ever made is Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Other movies that I found to be funnier than Airplane! include Heathers, Weird Science, The Hangover, The Gods Must Be Crazy, The Big Lebowski, Old School, A Fish Called Wanda, Dodgeball, Grosse Pointe Blank, Notting Hill, the first two American Pie films, Stripes, The Pink Panther, and Being There.