Tantalus Prime

I will be unavailable for several days

2011-08-15T07:00:00.001-04:00

... so I leave you with the sweet soulful sounds of the greatest singer/songwriter ever to grace the multiverse:

As usual I am late to the party

2011-08-12T14:32:00.002-04:00

But I just want to comment on two things that Egnor has said in response to Novella concerning a materialist explanation of the mind.

First Egnor gives us a tutorial on the eloquent and non-eloquent areas of the brain and gives us the following diagram:

[The] non-eloquent areas (where brain anatomy does not correlate with specific function) are in tan, and the eloquent areas (where brain anatomy does correlate with specific function) are the named colored areas. As you can see, most of the brain mass is non-eloquent and does not anatomically correlate with specific brain function in any precise way. In fact, one can surgically remove much of the non-eloquent brain without significant discrete neurological deficit. Major portions of the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, parietal lobes, occipital lobes, and cerebellar hemispheres can be removed (and are removed, in operating rooms every day) without substantial specific loss of function.

I wish had a picture but the best thing I could find was this summary of different brain functions by Brodmann area. If you take a look through it you can see that the idea that large parts of the non-eloquent brain do not correlate with specific function is quite absurd.

Furthermore, the eloquent brain is called so not because it correlates with a specific function, but because damage to those areas is necessary for regular daily activity. Damage here leads to readily apparent and predictable changes in behavioural output, such as language use or motor control. Damage to non-eloquent areas also leads to predictable changes in behavioral output. However, discerning those changes requires specialized tests because they only manifest under certain conditions, not because there is a poor correlation between anatomy and function. I find it difficult to conceive that anyone, given our current knowledge, would assert this is not the case.

Second, Egnor gives us his standards for scientific proof of a material mind:

Novella has no evidence for a 1:1 correlation between brain anatomy and higher mental function. This evidence is required if materialism is to be supported, because materialism asserts that brain matter is the complete cause of the mind, without remainder. Thus far, for higher mental functions, the remainder is huge, and there is no reason to believe based on the science that a 1:1 reduction of mind to brain will ever be found, especially with regard to higher mental functions such as reasoning.

Now think about that for a moment. Egnor is asking not just for a high correlation but an absolute correlation as proof of materialism. There is no margin for errors in measurement, stochastic processes, or individual differences, let alone the limits of current or future technology to accurately measure brain function. Egnor has essentially said no amount of evidence will convince him that materialism is correct. That doesn't surprise me at all nor does it bother me at all, but it would be nice if he just came out and said that rather than imply that some empirical evidence would convince him otherwise. Within biology you never see a correlation of 1.0 even for the most basic functions (I would be very suspicious if I did). But this absolute correlation Egnor looks for as proof of materialism raises some problems when we start looking at non-biological fields of scientific inquiry.

For example, within chemistry we have a decent understanding of how elements interact to form complex molecules. A diamond, a decidedly non-living entity, is a crystalline formation of carbon atoms. It has a predictably structure that is restricted by the covalent bonding pattern of carbon although impurities and defects in the structure are not uncommon. It would seem that the results of cutting a diamond (the material) could be reliably predicted by complete knowledge of the lattice orientation, imperfections, inclusions, etc. However, even with years of experience diamond cutters do not know for certain how a diamond will spit when struck. Does the fact that one cannot use a materialist approach to predict diamond splitting with absolutely certainty mean that a) our imprecision is due to our lack of perfect knowledge (a lack that may exist in perpetuity), or b) there is an additional immaterial essence of the diamond (the form) that is unknowable and ultimately determines what shape the cut diamond will be. It seems improbable that the latter is the case, but I would not be surprised if Egnor believes it is. Frankly not too much he says would surprise me at this point.

Talk about an impossible standard.

I really don't mind when I hear a "god of the gaps" style argument. People are free to fit in their particular non-empirical entity of choice in any gap they want. But the "god of the gaps" accusation is not a comment on the success of current theories to fill in the gaps. It is a comment on the abject failure of god as an explanatory device. I have no illusions that we can attain perfect knowledge and explain all things, but that should not be mistaken as a belief that with perfect knowledge one could not do so in principle. With each new gap that is filled in by a materialist approach to the mind it becomes increasingly unreasonable to assert that the mind can best be accounted for by an immaterial essence. Inference to the best explanation, as fans of abductive reasoning would say.

Image via Xavier Studio

I have often felt I needed something like this

2011-08-11T14:55:00.000-04:00

In speaking with those of the American, Christian, born-again persuasion I have often felt that I needed the help of a translator. Not for every word, just a few words that seem, within certain religious circles, to have an entirely different meaning from everyday English. Turns out there is such a book:

Many Americans are bilingual. They speak a secular language of sports talk, celebrity gossip and current events. But mention religion and some become armchair preachers who pepper their conversations with popular Christian words and trendy theological phrases. If this is you, some Christian pastors and scholars have some bad news: You may not know what you’re talking about. They say that many contemporary Christians have become pious parrots. They constantly repeat Christian phrases that they don’t understand or distort.

So even the native speakers don't understand the language. Glad I'm not the only one. There is a group of people though who do understand the power of Christian speak: politicians.

During his 2003 State of the Union address, George W. Bush baffled some listeners when he declared that there was “wonder-working power” in the goodness of American people. Evangelical ears, though, perked up at that phrase. It was an evangelical favorite, drawn from a popular 19 th century revival hymn about the wonder-working power of Christ called “In the Precious Blood of the Lamb.” Leonard says Bush was sending a coded message to evangelical voters: I’m one of you.

Just like Michele Bachmann. References like that fly over my head. Maybe with the right translation guide they won't.

Your commute is less fun

2011-08-10T19:45:00.003-04:00

A railway station in Utrecht has just had a "people accelerator" installed, otherwise known as a slide:

Now if they just replace some footbridges with monkey bars and call the "elevated handpaths" ...

Image via Popupcity

NPR story: " ... the existence of Adam and Eve"

2011-08-09T06:59:00.002-04:00

NPR had an interesting, if repetitive, story on the crisis evangelicals have with the historic accuracy of Adam and Eve.

To get down to just two ancestors, Venema [of Trinity Western University] says, "You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence."

More Destiny Lab

2011-08-08T18:50:00.000-04:00

If you want your biblical prophecy accompanied by a dash of alien invasion never fear! Destiny Lab is on the case!

SOME IMAGINE THAT GODS CAME IN ALIEN CRAFTS
THEY REACT IN THIS WAY THERE SO DESPERATE
FOR MEANING AND PURPOSE BUT SATANIC SERVANTS
THEY KNOW THIS THEY HAVE EVIL MOTIVES AM I MAKING YOU NERVOUS?
HUH? I'M JUST SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

No, please don't scratch anymore. I don't think I could handle it.

I will try to take this seriously for the moment

2011-08-03T07:00:00.000-04:00

Keith Ablow, Fox News’ resident psychiatrist*, puts forward the argument that men should have veto rights over abortion:

I believe that in those cases in which a man can make a credible claim that he is the father of a developing child in utero, in which he could be a proper custodian of that child, and in which he is willing to take full custody of that child upon its delivery, that the pregnant woman involved should not have the option to abort and should be civilly liable, and possibly criminally liable, for psychological suffering and wrongful death should she proceed to do so.

I have limited the scope of my argument intentionally, in order to focus on what I consider to be a question that puts fairness front and center: If a man has participated in creating a new life and is fully willing to parent his child (independently, if necessary), why should he not have any control over whether that life is ended?

All right, ignoring the way in which this final question is loaded, I can think of several reasons why this should not be the case. It assumes that the pregnancy is the result of a fully consensual relationship. It assumes that a credible claim to paternity is sufficient when paternity can only be determined with any real level of certainty in utero by chorionic villus samples or amniocentesis, procedures which are invasive and have risks inherent in their use. It assumes that, if the relationship was consensual, that the man entered into it without deception on his part as a means to fathering a child. It assumes that competent adults are not the sole arbiters of their own medical decisions. It also assumes a point that I, I'm sure with great controversy, will come out against.

It assumes men and women are biologically equivalent.

I know, I can hear the feminists knocking down the gates already, but I stand by what I say. Men are just incapable being pregnant. Perhaps one day the dude-erus will be reality, but until then we must suffer under the arcane notion that woman have a slight advantage in the baby making process and therefore should have at least some modicum of control over what happens to their bodies.

To continue with the seriousness:

Just in my own practice of psychiatry, I have listened to dozens of men express lingering, sometimes intense, pain over abortions that proceeded either without their consent, or without them having spoken up about their desires to bring their children to term and parent them.

I do not doubt that some men have such intense emotions. I also don’t doubt that there are women who, under pressure from society or a partner, have suffered psychologically from being compelled to carry a fetus to term against their will. These two outcomes are in opposition. Guess whose side I fall on. You don’t have to guess with Ablow:

I understand that adopting social policy that gives fathers the right to veto abortions would lead to presently unknown psychological consequences for women forced to carry babies to term. But I don’t know that those consequences are greater than those suffered by men forced to end the lives of their unborn children.

In addition to the psychological consequences of being stripped of your autonomy, being threatened with jail, gaining 20kg, undergoing 36 hours of labor, facing a small but significant chance of death, receiving a fourth degree vaginal tear if you are lucky and a week of bed rest while you recuperate from major abdominal surgery if you aren’t, all to be topped off by serving as an incubator for the guy who made you go through all of that certainly can’t be greater than what a man goes through when his partner has an abortion. In case you had any doubt about Ablow’s view on sex and pregnancy as it pertains to women, he drives the point home:

And I am absolutely certain that no woman needs to become pregnant who wishes not to become pregnant. Women taking full responsibility for their sexual activity and their bodies would mean that no woman would face the prospect of being compelled to bring a child to term.

Yes, the world where there is no rape, birth control never fails, and pregnancy has no complications.

As the religious conservatives like to say, this is what happens when you view people as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves.

*Must … resist … urge … must … resist … O’Reilly ... joke.

That is an empirical question...

2011-08-02T08:50:00.000-04:00

It is not unusual to find groups with a particular ideological agenda, conservative, progressive, liberal, reactionary, or otherwise that make empirical statements without the rigorous data necessary to back it up. I often assume they have no real interest in trying to corroborate or falsify their claims. But if they really are trying then, bless their little hearts, they just don't know what sort of data they need or how to go about collecting it.

For example, according to Jerry Newcombe the group "40 Days of Life" have been using prayer* against abortion providers, with stunning results:

They claim that, so far, at least 4,313 would-be aborted babies (that they know of) have been saved from the procedure. That's 4,313 babies, presumably bringing joy to their mothers right now. They claim that 53 clinic workers have had a change of heart because of the vigils and have left the abortion field as a result ... 40 Days for Life also claims that, thanks to their efforts, 14 abortion clinics have shut down. Again, this is all because of peaceful prayer vigils, around the clock for 40 days in a row in select cities.

All because of prayer! Or maybe not. I haven't been able to find a thorough analysis of their data on their website, and I am a bit incredulous since the scientific evidence for prayer has been rather lackluster. Maybe it was the fasting.

So what sort of data would they need? Well, for starters, I would like to see the baseline data for abortions provided, staff turnover, and center closings for the same period at abortion providers that weren't subject to directed prayer*. Better yet, they should have a list of providers and randomly select half of the sites for prayer vigils, half for no vigils, and keep track of both. Alternatively, they could run an A-B-A design looking at the variables during pre-prayer baseline, prayer*, and post-prayer baseline to see if prayer stopped having an effect once removed.

There is the further problem that even if one did find a change using the above approaches one couldn't assign that effect solely to the power of prayer. It could be that the mere presence of a vigil has such an effect. To test this they would need to hold a vigil during which the participants do not pray. Should we still see a change, then one couldn't say the effect was due to prayer*. The real test though would be to have a prayer vigil that was in close proximity to abortion providers but not visible to anyone on the street or in the clinic, say a next door office building. That would get to the heart of the power of prayer* in this context.

This particular group has set up such a prayer vigil almost literally within a stone's throw of me. Perhaps I should walk over there and offer my services as a scientific consultant.

*And fasting! Don't forget the fasting!

Some poster session advice

2011-07-26T18:45:00.000-04:00

I gave some rather terse advice on a different blog about how a poster presenter should behave during their session, giving the impression that presenters should not engage conference participants. If that is what people took from it, I was wrong. Presenters should engage participants, especially young presenters looking to get their name recognized. Just don't overdo it.

With that out of the way, here is some more advice: always have an alternative explanation. Better yet, have a way to test between the existing hypothesis and the alternative (the ever present 'Future Plans' section at the end of the poster). Don't get caught off guard like Paul Nelson.

During my session, several people asked me to provide "your alternative" to the problems posed in my poster. I must admit I wasn't ready for this question ... The overwhelming response from [everyone] was, "OK, Paul --so what do you propose to do?" Next time I'll be better prepared to step into the opening these questions provide.

All right, I find this a little hard to believe. Anyone who has experience with presenting data should know that this is one of the first questions you will be asked. That's why you don't wait for it to be asked, you include it in the discussion. Not to mention that the scientific process is generally a constant comparison of the explanatory power of competing theories.

So kids, let this be your lesson. Know not only how you would explain your data, but how someone else might explain them.

Fa-Lisle-cies

2011-07-18T16:39:00.004-04:00

Periodically I search YouTube for lectures on various subjects that may be of interest and came across a recently posted video on "Evolution and Logical Fallacies", so I decided to give it a look. Turns out it is a talk by Jason Lisle, astrophysicist and speaker/researcher for Answers in Genesis.

Turning to Answers in Genesis for advice on logical thinking is a bit like turning to Lehman Brothers for advice on investment banking. While the bones of the talk are fine the ironically titled lecture is riddled with its own fallacies and bad logic. I of course can't cover them all (to do so would result in a video longer than the original) so I will point out one before I get to the howler at the end of his talk.

To his credit, Lisle does point out to his (presumably) Christian audience not to conflate the colloquial and scientific terms theory by saying evolution is 'just' a theory (~19:00). To his discredit though he then proceeds to claim that evolution isn't a scientific theory at all because it has no supporting evidence. Rather, Lisle prefers to say evolution is only a model.

There, got that out of my system.

A scientific theory is a scientific hypothesis with corroborating evidence. The geocentric model of the solar system is a scientific theory; that the sun appears to go around the earth corroborates the theory. However, other data, such as the movement of the planets, falsify the theory and the corroborated datum can be easily incorporated into a more corroborated theory, the heliocentric model of the solar system.

Truth be told the model of creation presented by AIG is also a scientific theory ... albeit a poorly corroborated one. I would say it has been falsified numerous times, but the problem is the theory of creation makes few definitive predictions about how the world should be. All data is jerryrigged post-hoc; it predicts everything and therefore predicts nothing. The model of evolution however has been corroborated countless times, meaning it is the theory of evolution. Lisle really should know better.

Which is a great segue to the howler Lisle presents near the end of his talk.

Lisle goes into talking about formal fallacies and has this to to say about the converse error (affirming the consequent, ~38:00):

In my opinion this is the most common fallacy committed by evolutionists. Number one. They’ll say my theory predicts this, this is true, therefore my theory is true, and that does not work logically because there could be other reasons why that works out.

Lisle claims scientists are making an error in deductive logic. Except when scientists make such claims they are using inductive logic. They aren’t saying since the prediction is true the theory is true; they are saying since the prediction is true the theory is corroborated. The theory can never really be accepted as true. We can tentatively and grudgingly fail to reject it, but never say definitively it is true. The problem of induction, basic knowledge to all scientists. Including creation scientists like Lisle. Which means he knows better than to make such a claim.

“Creationism is the truth” gangsta rap

2011-07-18T13:45:00.000-04:00

Parody or the next “F**king Magnets, How Do They Work?”? You decide.

Mind the gap

2011-07-15T12:30:00.004-04:00

Scientists who support the concept of a clear delineation between a non-material mind and a material body have had a rough go of it over the past century or two. While one could have been a dualist at the start of the 19th century, to claim the science supports dualism at the start of the 21st century stretches credulity. Case studies like Phineas Gage showed that site specific brain damage leads to corresponding changes in cognition and personality; the neuron doctrine became dominant and led to the study of neurons as discrete units; Hubel and Wiesel demonstrated the existence of a critical period for visual development that fundamentally affects our later visual perception of the world; Sperry and Gazzaniga found that individuals with a split brain had, under certain conditions, difficulty developing a unified perception of the world; Brodman mapped the cortex based on its cytoarchitecture while Penfield mapped it based on its function; neuropharmacology and techniques like TMS demonstrated that subjective perceptions can be altered by external sources in a reversible manner. All of this research, and this is the short list, makes it more and more untenable to assert that our mental life can somehow be separated from our brain function (1). Scientifically.

Philosophically, of course, one can always look at the gaps in our knowledge and maintain the mind lives there. So while the concept of the mind may be of little utility to scientists, so long as we don’t know everything the concept of a non-material mind will still be with us. Its definition just needs to be changed and we are told “No, no, what I really meant by the mind is this.” It’s like playing a game of three card monte were the non-materialist has a deck of infinite cards and the money card keeps changing. “Yes you found the queen but you need to find the red queen … no, no the queen of hearts, not diamonds … yes that is the queen of hearts but you want the one with the eye patch …” All scientists can do is nod and affirm that the ever elusive one-eyed queen of hearts might be out there and wonder why we shouldn’t accept the more parsimonious answer that it doesn’t exist.

Recently Steve Novella offered a list of predictions based on the brain causes mind hypothesis, i.e. the mind is a manifestation of the brain’s physiological function.

If the brain causes mind, then:
1- Brain states will correlate to mental and behavioral states.
2- Brain maturity will correlate with mental and emotional maturity.
3- Changing the brain’s function (with drugs, electrical or magnetic stimulation, or other methods) will change mental function.
4- Damaging the brain with damage the mind – producing specific deficits that correlate to the area of the brain damaged.
5- There will be no documentable mental phenomena in the absence of brain function.
6- When the brain dies, mental function ends.

Mr. Novella doesn’t go on to elaborate and Michael Egnor questions what exactly Mr. Novella meant by number 2.

What does Novella mean by "brain maturity"? Mylenation? If so, then there is a vague correlation. Babies are immature, and their brains are incompletely mylenated. What else could he mean by "brain maturity"? Size? Dendritic complexity? Anatomical (gyral) complexity? None of those brain states correlates in any reliable way with mental and emotional maturity. There are mentally/emotionally mature people with brains of all sizes and shapes and structures. There isn't the least bit of correlation.

This is an excellent question! And since Mr. Novella is away at TAM, I will take a stab answering it. Take for example dopaminergic input to the frontal cortex (2).

We know from a great deal of research that the frontal cortex is involved in working memory which in turn affects cognitive function. It is believed that some of the cognitive impairments of schizophrenia may be due to altered functioning of the frontal cortex and specifically dopaminergic input. There is a whole literature on the discovery of the Val/Met polymorphism of COMT and how, by altering dopamine levels in the frontal cortex, it may play a role in schizophrenia. As an aside, it appears that the the presence of the Val/Met polymorphism affects how we emotionally process information leading to subtle variations in personality between individuals. If you have ever heard of the “Worrier vs. Warrior” hypothesis, this is what they are talking about. That dopamine levels themselves might affect how one perceives the world is just one datum speaking to the brain causes mind hypothesis, but it gets more intricate than this.

Risky behavior seems to be associated with mental maturity level, with adolescents displaying more affinity for risk than adults. To put it tritely, teenagers are more likely than adults to look at a drinking situation and think “Hey, doing a beer funnel would be fun” than “Hey, drinking that much beer at once could be dangerous”. They grow out of it; we all did. But much research has shown that risky behavior and addiction may have at its source an alteration of dopamine release in several brain regions including the frontal cortex. Dopamine release by itself isn’t enough of course, it depends upon receptor activation. There are two types of dopamine receptor(3) and depending on which one you inhibit you can alter risk seeking and risk aversion. And guess what? The density of dopaminergic receptors changes during the lifespan, which is one of the hypothesized mechanisms by which maturation away from risk seeking behavior in adolescence occurs. So there you go. One example of how brain maturity correlates with mental maturity.

Of course, one can always rescue the mind saying that assessing the risk inherent in any situation isn’t really a mental state. I know, I know. “You found the one-eyed queen of hearts but she doesn’t have a peg leg, which is what you are really looking for …”. Sure, she could be out there. Somewhere.

(1) I am speaking of course of those who assert a non-material mind. There are those who assert the mind is an emergent property, a separate entity dependent upon a material brain. But that is a different story.

(2) This is the short version by the way. The long version would be a chapter Annual Reviews.

(3) Actually five receptors in two classes. Six if you count the short and long versions of D2 as different. Another chapter in Annual Reviews.

Supernaturalism defeated?

2011-07-09T12:49:00.001-04:00

I’ve never been to keen on philosophy. Whether it was Aquinas in confirmation class, Plato in high school, or Popper and Searle in college I always found the whole discipline overly complicated, self-serving, and frankly of little utility. But I think I’m starting to get the hang of it and even starting to enjoy it now.

Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism has certainly presented me with an argument that I think is free of needless complicatiion, of great utility and foolproof. To summarize the argument, take the following definitions:

SN -super-naturalism, the idea that there is a God or something like God that cannot not be defined in solely material terms
TE -theistic evolution, the belief that human beings have created with either the complete or partial guidance of a supernatural being
R -the proposition that our cognitive faculties are reliable

So, what is the probability of R given the condition that we accept both SN and TE:

P(R/SN&TE)

Given our acceptance of SN we also accept that we cannot, by definition, access the mind of an immaterial God. Consequently it can not be known whether our beliefs, which are the product of a super-natural process TE, are true. In other words there is no reason to presume that a God which created human beings necessitates that such a God also created us with true beliefs. There is one instance in which our beliefs would be true and therefore reliable:

1) God is an omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent being who created humans (or at least the human mind) in his image.

However the probability of this is low given that there are many other options, some of which have a great deal of evidence to support them. In each case the result would be compromised or unreliable beliefs in the human mind:

2) There is not one but many gods who have conflicting goals or designed by committee leading to the development of unreliable faculties.

3) God is limited in his knowledge, kindness, or power and therefore can not create a human mind in which all beliefs are true.

4) God is malevolent and purposefully creates untrue beliefs (example, the problem of evil).

5) God delights in deception (example, Cartesian demon).

6) God is a hipster who enjoys ironic humour (example, external male genitalia, duck-billed platypus)

7) God is incompetent. There is copious evidence to support this assertion including pseudogenes, vestigial organs, a circuitous male reproductive tract, redundant pathways in the brain, etc.

Given these options it is highly probable, in fact one might say likely, that the supernatural designer of theistic evolution is error prone. As a consequence it is highly probable that human beliefs, which are the product of an error-prone supernatural being, are also in error. Therefore given the belief in both SN and TE it is highly improbable that our cognitive faculties are reliable or:

P(R/SN&TE) is low

Given that this is proven the person who believes SN and TE has a defeater for R and should not trust their beliefs. Since SN and TE are themselves beliefs there is no good rationale to accept both that there is a God and that God had a hand in the evolution of human beings.

It makes sense to me and I’m glad Plantinga argued the point so thoroughly. If you believe in God, you can’t believe God created humans. If you believe God created humans, you can’t believe in God.

Wait, no that’s not right ...

I get email

2011-07-07T10:44:00.001-04:00

Periodically I have been asked for my clinical opinion on a potential neurological condition afflicting someone. It's not often, but I have been asked about such diverse things as stroke, Creutzfeldt–Jakob, and Parkinson's. While I might be able to give some insight, for example I did correctly recognize the beginning signs of Parkinson's in one person, I do not offer it for one very good reason: I am not a clinician. My advice is always to go see one.

But recently I received an email in which I was asked to help someone not as a clinician but as a scientist. The person in question has a publicly open blog and youtube channel so I don't think he would mind me posting this; if he does he is free to ask for its removal. The body of the email is essentially the same as the blog. I also want to make clear that my goal is not to make light of individuals who may or may not have a disease of the mind, but to bring attention to it.

This individual believes he is telepathic and is looking for a neuroscientist to study him. The problem is that the telepathy he claims to have sounds reminiscent of the hallucinatory symptoms of schizophrenia. He recognizes this but argues that it is possible that most patients diagnosed with schizophrenia are also in fact telepathic. (He also makes the contradictory claim that he believes he may be the only person in the world with telepathy). He claims that an individual is talking to him, telling him that he is a worthless person, causing him to smell things that aren't there, and control muscles both on his face and in his gut.

Now while he may in fact be telepathic, the vast body of research suggests that telepathy as a phenomenon does not exist. So my advise as a researcher would be to look at other explanations. He may be an individual who is suffering from mental disease. There is no more shame in that than there is shame in having a liver disease, no matter how society tends to treat such individuals. But I have not the expertise to diagnose that. So the advise I would offer him is the same I offered to the person who thought their mom had Parkinson's: seek the advice of a clinician.

Confusion about pro-life positions

2011-07-06T21:10:00.002-04:00

I suppose I am breaking some blogging rules of conduct in doing this, but I don’t really have any interest in commenting over on the newly created blog by Michael Egnor. And my question concerns what one of his commenters said rather than what he said. So here it is.

crusadeREX is one of the more fervent supporters on Egnor’s new blog, commenting on a fairly regular basis. He shares many views with the doctor including a strong stance against abortion. Or so I thought. One commenter, Andrea, asked on Egnor’s blog:

"Well I do think that human embryos and fetuses are human beings" -So, if you had the option of saving 100 embryos or one baby -you would the embryos ? [sic]

This was a moral dilemma that I imagined up some years ago. I have not seen this dilemma presented elsewhere, but that just means I haven’t looked hard enough to find out who came up with it first. To wit:

You are a firefighter called to the scene of burning IVF clinic. Upon entering you see one of the staff, unconscious and pinned to the floor. You also see a liquid nitrogen tank containing 100 human embryos which are all slated for implantation. The structure is ready to collapse. You must leave and won’t have any time to return. Do you remove the staff member or the nitrogen tank? (1)

My assumption, and the answer I have received from some pro-life individuals, is that a pro-life individual would be obligated to remove the tank. If life begins at (or near) fertilization, and if all lives have equivalent worth, then it is more moral and internally consistent to save the 100 human embryos than the one staff member. To answer otherwise would be to recognize either that the definition of life is fuzzy or that the worth of human beings is partly determined by their developmental stage. crusadeREX, however gave a rather surprising response:

Are they petri-dish cultured embryos created to perish in the lab; be used in experiments, harvested for stem cells, or frozen to meet another such engineered doom in the future? Will they never be given the potential to grow into full developed adult homo sapiens?
OR, are they naturally procreated gestating embryos already in situ and developing with the potential to become fully developed adult human beings? OBVIOUSLY this distinction between the potential of these hypothetical embryos is very important in how we answer the question.

So potential is the key here, and potential seems to exist only in the uterus. It does raise the rather obvious point that pro-life debaters will often bring up. The difference between the embryo in the tank at the clinic and the freshly implanted embryo at the clinic is only a matter of environment, and environment cannot be a determinant of whether or not the embryo has a right to life.

There is a way to accept this pro-life assertion and still choose the staff member over the tank. If potential (meaning successful implantation) is important one might argue that, with an average successful embryo transfer rate of about 25% depending on who you ask, the embryos in the tank only have a probability of potential life, not potential life itself (2), and with this distinction there is is no moral dilemma. But this would raise a further question. Even within the population of implanted embryos there are some genetic conditions where the potential to survive gestation is virtually zero and some, such as Trisomy 18, where the potential of long-term survival outside the uterus is virtually zero or at least very low. As such all implanted embryos only have a probability for potential life, therefore removing any moral dilemma in their termination. I don’t think that is where crusadREX wanted to go.

One could of course argue that ‘potential’ implies probability and call me a dumbass. I know that (3). Which is why the above argument would be poor and you are still left trying to explain why environment should be a barrier to human rights, not to mention why potential should enter into it. I simply offered it as a potential work around because I am having difficulty holding together these three doctrines that crusadREX seems to hold simultaneously: a) human life begins at fertilization, b) all humans with life have an equal right to life c) humans which are not given the potential to develop to live ex utero have no explicit right to life. I really thought I was misreading it until crusadeREX doubled down:

Andreas, You begin: "The embryos in the petri-dish have the same potential for development (and could, theoretically, be used for in-vitro fertilization). So, your distinction is meaningless, and the moral dilemma stands". That is factually incorrect. The Petri-dish will not gestate them, deliver them, or nuture and love them. These little creatures of potential -in their earliest stages have NO CHANCE, unless the scientists that created them reinsert them successfully into a surrogate. Their potential is limited by the sentient beings who will willingly and with intent create them and USE them up as a resource, despite the inherit potential of the embryonic cells themselves..

Surely this can't be the majority opinion amongst pro-life individuals; otherwise whence the opposition to embryonic stem cell research? I must be making a mistake somewhere, because this is not a point of view I have seen before. Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

1) For bonus points does it matter if the staff member is conscious? Does it matter if the staff member is administrative, a nurse, or a doctor? What if it was a female patient who was there to be implanted? Would it be moral to attempt to remove both the tank and the staff member knowing that none of you would make it out of there? Does it matter if the embryos are slated for implantation?

2) By contrast the staff member has neither the probability of potential life, nor potential life, but actual life itself.

3) That potential implies probability, though I do know that I am a dumbass too.

SATIRE: Northern heritage group urges boycott of NBC

2011-07-03T12:00:00.002-04:00

(Washington, DC) - NBC’s recent televised introduction to the US Open included a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” omitted leading many groups to call for an apology or boycott of NBC. Today a new group can be added to that list, but not for the reasons you think.

“It is a travesty, a complete travesty, that NBC would willy-nilly remove those words and forget about their meaning for American history,” said Hiram Maxwell a spokesperson for the Defenders of Northern Aggression. “For NBC to leave out the words ‘one nation … indivisible’ is to discount everything that we fought The War for. I mean, there’s the slavery thing too, but preservation of the Union is a close second. Oh yeah and the ‘under God’ thing, I guess I’m not to happy about that either. But the indivisible thing, that is unacceptable.”

During the kerfuffle few groups have recognized that NBC omitted more than just ‘under God’ from the pledge. Maxwell and the DNA seek to remedy that and have called for an immediate nationwide boycott of NBC. “Have you seen how many commercials NBC airs for McDonald’s Sweet Tea? Sweat Tea! It’s obvious that NBC has a blatant pro-Southern agenda.”

Another group, The Seekers of Peaceful Southern Secession, has a different opinion.

“I think it is fabulous. To have NBC recognize that not only are the United States not one nation but that they are also divisible is a great triumph,” said Jonas Williams, president and sole member of SPSS. His group, based in Nome, Alaska, has been seeking to negotiate a non-violent separation of the former Confederacy from the Union since the Hayes administration. They have not met with much success.

“I got to shake Carter’s hand once during the 1980 election campaign. He gave me a bag of peanuts. Unfortunately, that’s as close as we’ve gotten since my grandfather got a ‘Pardon me” when Roosevelt accidentally stepped on his foot. No, the first one.”

Giving his reasons for basing his group in Alaska Williams said, “Are you kidding? Have you been to the South? It’s a hundred degrees in the winter. Poisonous snakes hiding under houses. Gators sneaking into your swimming pool. Do you know they’ve got these things called palmetto bugs, which is a pretty deceiving name for a cockroach the size of a small dog? No, thank you, I’m not man enough to live there. It would damage my fragile constitution.”

Maxwell and his group takes a strong stance against SPSS. “You talked to that tool? You’d better tell him to watch himself or I’m gonna open a can of Reconstruction whoop-ass on him!” When asked for details on the size of his organization Maxwell responded, “Mind your own damn business.”

John Jones, Professor of American History at Gene Eric University in Albany, GA offered some background information on these two groups. “Seriously, where do you find these guys?” He elaborated by adding, “No, I mean seriously, where?”

The Bizarro world of marriage rights

2011-07-02T08:12:00.001-04:00

I read today a rather odd editorial against the extension of marriage benefits to same-sex couples. I must admit for a moment I thought I had entered Bizarro world. The editorial, by George Weigel, contained many odd conjectures but amongst the most odd was about what he considered the non-analogy of the current gay rights movement and the civil rights movement of fifty years ago:

[The] analogy simply doesn't work. Legally enforced segregation involved the same kind of coercive state power that the proponents of gay marriage now wish to deploy on behalf of their cause. Something natural and obvious – "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal" – was being denied by the state in its efforts to maintain segregated public facilities and to deny full citizenship rights to African Americans.

It's as if we don't have access to history textbooks that would show us images like this.

(Via Wikipedia) Rioters at the Stonewall Inn attempt to resist a police raid to arrest homosexuals in 1969. The state hasn't used power in an attempt to subjugate homosexuals by virtue of the fact that they are homosexuals? This is simply false. The same was done to African Americans, but that wasn't the end of government force in the civil rights struggle.

(Via Wikipedia) Arkansas National Guard escorts the Little Rock Nine to their newly desegregated classroom. When it became necessary the state also used the power of coercion to enforce desegregation. Without the power of the federal government racial desegregation would have been exceedingly difficult. But Weigel doesn't think so.

Once the American people came to see that these arrangements, however hallowed by custom (and prejudice), were, in fact, unnatural and not obvious, the law was changed.

Again Bizarro world. As if white America suddenly realized that sitting next to a black person wasn't going to cause Armageddon and they were okay with desegregation. Many Americans weren't too keen on the idea of desegregation, otherwise the above picture would never have been taken. What some Americans were keen on was enforcing segregation outside of the law.

Sundown towns such as Harrison, AK drove blacks by sheer will of the citizenry, not by police force, and remained an almost exclusively white town for most of the 20th century. And speaking of citizens working outside the law to enforce their own views, here is one last picture.

(Via SFGater) The fence where Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die, presumably after being targeted for his sexual orientation.

The analogy may not be perfect, but it is there. And it is certainly not as Weigel claims:

The gay-marriage movement ... is the heir of Bull Connor and others who tried to impose their false idea of moral reality on others by coercive state power.

Proponents of extending secular marriage to include same-sex partners are the new Bull Conners? The ones who have been shunned, ostracized, and relegated to the outskirts of society are the ones wielding all the power? Bizarro world. Perhaps I should let someone who is better with words than I sum it up:

Yes, the will of the people matters a great deal. Indeed, in a democracy, few things are more deserving of deference. But still, one draws up short at the idea that human rights are subject to a popularity contest. One shudders to think what sort of nation this would be if Lyndon Johnson, before signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act of 1965, had first taken a poll of the American people.
We tend to regard America, proudly, as a nation where human rights are given. But that stance is actually at odds with the formulation famously propounded by one of the first Americans. Thomas Jefferson, who, after all, wrote that human rights are “unalienable” and that we are endowed with them from birth.
If you believe that, then you cannot buy into this notion of a nation where rights are magnanimously doled out to the minority on a timetable of the majority’s choosing. You and I cannot “give” rights. We can only acknowledge, respect and defend the rights human beings are born with.
That’s the pebble in the shoe, the popcorn husk between the teeth, that nags at the conscience when one reads polls tracking how many of us approve of other people’s lives and decisions. It’s all well and good that 51 percent of us support the right of gay men and lesbians to tell it to the judge, but really, what hubris makes us think we have a right to say yea or nay in the first place?
One hopes that, as they grapple with the issue of gay marriage, our leaders will also grapple with that question. And find in it the courage to understand what Lyndon Johnson did: You don’t do the right thing because it’s popular.
You do it because it’s right.

I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday …

2011-07-01T15:57:00.001-04:00

Or the plural of anecdote...

Go quickly to Conservapaedia and you will see the following posted on their “In the News” Feature:

Cool summer temperatures again disprove global warming: "Our temperatures are running over 30 degrees below average for this time of the year." [17] One almost feels sorry for the liberals who lied about this issue.

If you follow the link you will see the upcoming KRCR weather report for Redding, CA. It has been unseasonably cold there. I guess that proves it; global warming is a myth because in this one select area of the globe during this one select week the temperatures have been lower than normal. Say, what is going to happen next week? Well, let’s take the bother to read the rest of the weather report, something which the Conservapedian author obviously did not do.

By Thursday the threat for any rain is gone and we can expect things to get back to normal around here with temperatures back in the triple digits by the weekend and continuing into the beginning of next week. Your 4th of July looks hot with highs between 102 and 107 degrees.

Wait, 107 degrees! That’s 10 degrees above normal!. I guess because this one select area of the globe during this one select week is going to have temperatures above normal that means global warming is true. Why not, such logic works when temperatures are below normal. I know it doesn’t make sense but that is the way they do things over there.

It must be tough being a Conservapedian and having your view on global warming literally based on which way the wind blows.

Sometimes it is the simple concepts that are hard to get

2011-06-29T07:54:00.001-04:00

Take post-hoc probability. Cornelius Hunter seems to understand the concept that any sequence of amino acids is as equally unlikely as the next:

Evolutionist Joe Felsenstein agrees that biology’s DNA sequences, for example, are unlikely. But so what? He writes:
I can show you how to—regularly and repeatably—get a sequence of events that is extremely improbable. Every time. Just take a coin and toss it 100 times. The resulting sequence of Heads and Tails has a probability of only 1 part in the 100th power of 2. Which is about 1 part in 10-to-the-30th. Wow, that is really improbable. Yet you can do it every time! I guess that shows that people who toss coins are making unreasonable assumptions ...
In other words, biology’s astronomically unlikely designs are not a problem because all designs are unlikely.

Seems to understand, I wrote, because he then turns around and uses the argument of a sequence being unlikely anyway.

The problem with this utterly foolish logic is that not all designs work. In fact, the vast majority don’t work. When I say “vast majority” I mean, for all practical purposes, all of them. For a typical protein you would need more than 10^100 (a one followed by one hundred zeros) evolutionary experiments to create it.

The key word there is ‘typical’. Hunter has an endpoint in mind and the probability of reaching that particular endpoint is effectively zero. Which is true. And irrelevant. That Hunter is making this argument reinforces the fact that while he seems to understand that the probability of a particular protein is irrelevant he does not understand that the particular function of the protein is also irrelevant. Perhaps an analogy will help.

Let’s say I am playing five card stud poker. There are over 300 million possible hands I might be dealt. Now, what is the probability that I will win against an opponent. Well, that all depends; what does my opponent have. I might need a royal flush, but only if my opponent has a straight flush. If my opponent has a particularly crappy hand, I could win with an Ace high card. In fact the vast majority of hands could be a winner by virtue of being just good enough.

Now proteins. A simple six amino acid sequence has about 64 million possible combinations. Now what is the probability that protein will ‘win’ in the physiological sense. In other words, what is the probability that it will have a beneficial function? Remember the poker analogy; the function doesn’t need to be perfect nor does the function need to be specific, it just needs to be better than neutral. The new protein could aid the function of an existing protein, form a heteromeric structure with some other proteins, act as an enzyme for the conversion of substrate, or what have you. It doesn’t matter. I would conjecture that the odds are pretty fair, though that is just a conjecture on my part. However, if you’re going to argue that the protein is non-functional because it doesn’t do the specific function you are looking for, then you aren’t thinking about evolution the right way.

A real world example of this would be nylonase, an enzyme that developed in a particular strain of bacteria that hydrolyzes the man-made polymer nylon. Post-hoc, such a development may seem completely impossible, but only if you are predicting an enzyme that hydrolyzes nylon in a particular way. But if that particular strain of bacteria had developed an enzyme to digest PVC, polystyrene, or any other synthetic polymer, I certainly hope Hunter would not have marked that as a failure to produce a functional protein simply because the substrate was different. Nor, I hope, would he ignore the demonstration of nylonase function appearing in another strain of bacteria simply because it digests nylon in a different manner from the original strain. See also the evolved ability of E. coli to utilize citrate as an energy source.

This post may be NSFW

2011-06-28T09:55:00.001-04:00

If you don't think you should be looking at links that describe the variety of human sexual behavior, then move along there is nothing to see here.

I know next to nothing about Devvy Kidd. She ran for Congress (twice) and writes editorials. Sometimes for World Net Daily, which I suppose tells me all I need to know. But from a recent editorial of hers titled There is no such thing as "same sex" marriage you might expect to find a list of reasoned arguments for why same sex marriage is an oxymoron. Instead we find out that same sex marriage is wrong because it is super-duper gross and disgusting:

I have yet to hear one single person say that having sex in someone else's rectum and feces is normal and healthy. Criticizing the filthy practice of sodomy is called "hate speech." How else should one describe sodomy practiced by "gays"? Perhaps I should call it buggery, but it doesn't change the act.

Late Friday night, June 24, 2011, New York became the sixth state of the Union to "legalize" marriage for sexual deviants. The world was immediately flooded with live media feeds of debauchery in several major cities. New York City saw "lots of celebrations." Men who have sex in each other's feces were kissing and groping. Females who slobber in each other's vaginas and other perversions, kissing and hugging. I find that highly offensive.

It is within one's rights of course to find particular sex acts abhorrent. But when surveys show that about one in three adult women engage in anal sex and about half of adult males engage in cunnilingus I hate to tell you but it appears that these acts are normal variations of sexual expression. You don't have to like it, you don't have to participate, but you do have to acknowledge it.

As an aside, it seems that not all homosexual couples engage in anal sex. To think that all couples have one way and one way only of expressing their sexuality suggests a certain, shall we say, lack of imagination.

Why same-sex marriage is necessary, even for libertarians

2011-06-27T14:30:00.000-04:00

John Stossel recently posted his affirmation that New York is doing the right thing by legalizing same-sex marriage. He then however goes on a tangent about how marriage should not be a state-run institution:

Finally, New York legalized gay marriage. I'm happy gay couples are now treated the same as straights, but the victory will be bittersweet. After all, gaining the ability to marry means being subjected to state control over your personal contracts. ... I wish the state would get out of the marriage business. Marriage should be a private contract. Legal issues that marriage raises --like inheritance, alimony, visitation rights in hospitals --can be handled through voluntary contracts between consenting adults.

On the surface this seems like a reasonable stance, one to which I must admit I used to be party to. There are just a few big problems with this.

First, the marriage contract itself confers upon the participants approximately 1 400 rights and privileges that they did not have while single. Furthermore, not all of these rights can currently be secured by private contract. As such without state-sanctioned marriage same-sex couples cannot possibly have all the same rights and the lengths to which they must go to enumerate and obtain the available rights via private contract would be onerous.

Second, issues concerning inheritance, health-care decisions, and child custody to name a few become more open to lawsuit under private contract. There is I believe in the case of terminally ill individuals a greater incentive, and greater possibility of success, for relatives claiming their rights as the next of kin to invalidate such same-sex private contracts through the legal system. While marriage does not eliminate such problems (see Terry Schiavo case) it does severely mitigate them.

Third, when such conflicts do arise how are they resolved? They go to arbitration which generally means they end up in court. Yes, it would be nice if all contracts were honored and all parties acted in good faith; but even if that is the case there may be some instances where the meaning of a contract is open to interpretation. Even Ayn Rand realized this and set up such a quasi-governmental system in her book Atlas Shrugged:

We are not a state here, not a society of any kind -we’re just a voluntary association of men held together by nothing but every man’s self-interest. I own the valley and I sell the land to the others, when they want it. Judge Narragansett is to act as our arbiter, in case of disagreements. He hasn’t had to be called upon, as yet.

Randian naivete aside, even in the world of private contracts it is assumed that disputes will arise and a method for resolution is put in place. This is an activity for which the judiciary already has the infrastructure, precedence, and experience necessary. So why make this more difficult than it needs to be? While Stossel’s vision isn’t totally without merit, it is without practicality.

Incidentally, I have seen this line of thinking as an argument against the extension of marriage to same-sex couples. That is, same-sex couples should simply sign a mutually agreed upon contract*. Such reasoning has never been very convincing to me since anything less than full marriage rights cannot, by definition, confer full marriage rights upon its participants.

Oh and by the way, congrats to my home state.

*as if marriage itself isn’t a mutually agreed upon contract

Inverting facts on the vertebrate retina

2011-06-23T13:43:00.002-04:00

Jonathon M over at ENV has many things to say about the recent Scientific American article summarizing evolution of the eye. Some of them I only have a passing familiarity with so I will leave comment on them to someone more qualified. However, in regards to the retinal structure I have more than a passing familiarity with it being that it is one of the most studied structures in neuroscience. M writes regarding the vertebrate inverted retina:

The bottom line is this: A visual system requires three things: speed, resolution and sensitivity. The inverse wiring has no affect on speed. As for resolution, it results in a tiny blind spot in each eye which is compensated by the brain such that it is virtually not noticeable. What is often ignored, however, is that sensitivity requires the inverted retina. The retinal cells require a very large oxygen supply, and hence a very large blood supply. Blood cells absorb light. If blood cells invade retinal cells, the consequence can be blindness. It is the facing away from the light which allows the retinal cells to be nourished by blood vessels that do not block the light.

Except that blood vessels do innervate the retina. While the outer layer (the photoreceptors) get their blood supply primarily from the choroid the inner layers (ganglion and bipolar cells) are primarily supplied by the central retinal artery. That is a small problem since light needs to pass through not only several layers of the retina but also through an amalgam of blood vessels, the ones that M seems to think don't exist, in order to cause a physiological effect in the photoreceptors. But that isn't the worst part for M.

In the fovea, the area of highest resolution in the mammalian eye, the blood vasculature is absent. Here is a pretty picture.

The ganglion and bipolar layers of the retina also thin at this point such that the mammalian retina is essentially no longer inverted. Here is another pretty picture:

Why does the retina thin at this point? The diminished impairment of photons to reach foveal cones results in increased resolution, the sort of resolution that M claims the inverted retina is great at. So if the inverted retina is so great why do organisms try so hard to overcome it? But that still isn't the worst part for M. He continues:

As is often pointed out, squids and octopuses have 'correctly' wired retinas that face outward. But these organisms are exothermic --they do not require the same blood supply to the retina.

So inverted retina are only a requirement for warm-blooded animals? Then why is it that fish, a cold-blooded marine animal like cephalopods, also have the same inverted retina as mammals? Hmm, mammals and fish ... both vertebrates ... what could they possibly have in common?

Pictures via Webvision

SHORT STORY: Who John Is

2011-06-20T14:32:00.002-04:00

“He’s getting up now. I don’t know why the anesthetic had an effect anyway.”

John woke up from his surgery in less pain than he expected. He had been dreaming of his childhood. Growing up on the northern shore of Florida watching all those rockets lifting modules for the permanent space station array, taking men to the asteroid belt, heading out to prep landing sites on the Jovian moons and knowing one day he was going to hitch a ride on one of them. He scratched his chest. A little surprised to find himself shirtless he looked down to his abdomen expecting to see a mass of gauze, blood and surgical tape. There was none.

“How did the surgery go?” John strained to keep his eyes open but let them close for the moment. Less than a week ago he had started feeling the first sharp pains in his gut. He was diagnosed with appendicitis two days out from re-entry and it was decided to wait rather than attempt a risky in-flight operation. “Did you get the appendix?” Still no response.

“Don’t you have any comparison scans from before he left?” John opened his eyes again to see a military doctor was asking the question. Standing next to him was John’s CO, wearing the trademark gold trimmed black uniform of female USEC officers.

“Flights are so routine we don’t even bother. A full medical diagnostic on all of our troops would put us behind schedule.” The CO shifted to face John and he momentarily saw her twice. First as herself and then as a reflection. A pane of glass formed a barrier between him and the others. Whats more, he was in a room that seemed to have no doors.

John sat up. “I need to know what’s going on. Am I all right?”

The CO tilted her head. “On our first day on Mars I told you to remember one thing. What was it?”

John straightened up. “That if we thought you were half an officer because you were a woman you would have to be twice as hard on us to prove otherwise. Sir.”

The CO leaned forward. “Two days before our launch you took a leave. Where did you go?”

John shook his head as he tried to remember. “The Aresian base commander had just approved base personnel for untethered ambulation so long as our biogenic terraformer kept the local pO2 at an acceptable level. I took a few hours and went for walk.”

“That’s probably when it happened” said the doctor to the CO.

“If it happened. He could have always been this way, but we have no way to prove it. We don’t even have any reason to think it.”

“With all due respect, sirs” interjected John, “I’m hearing a lot of talk but no answers. Am I going to be all right. Did you get my appendix?”

“You don’t have an appendix.” The icy stare from the doctor belied his calm exterior. That stare seemed to combine a seething contempt with restrained fear for the patient separated from him by a thick layer of glass. “You never had an appendix. You don’t have intestines, a liver, muscles, a brain or any of the other things that make us human. Hell, you don’t even have DNA. You want to know what we saw when we opened you up? We saw this.” The military doctor used his tab to project a QPS image onto an adjacent wall. What John saw looked familiar. “Wires. And circuit boards. And dozens of components that some of our engineers downstairs can’t even identify. Can you?”

At 12 John had gone to a street carnival and paid for one of those old-fashioned MRI scans of his body. Not high resolution like a QPS, but a good image all the same. He had thought it was a joke, like those photo booths that put your head on an animal or make it look like you have wings. Or made you look like a robot. For five dollars he thought he had paid for a scan that made his insides look like they had wires. And circuit boards. And dozens of components he couldn’t identify...

“Whatever your game is, we’re on to it now. What we want to know is what you are, who made you, and what your purpose is. Tell us who John is.”

Ignorance and arrogance on display

2011-06-10T16:10:00.002-04:00

Many, though of course not all, creationists exhibit the rather annoying habits of willful ignorance and dogmatic certitude. When these are combined you get an opinion piece like that written by Vicki Westling. In discussing the failings of evolution as a theory Ms Westling displays her ignorance:

[If Darwin] was correct in his theory, then how did he account for the vast differences between animal, plant, fowl, fish and man?

That was kind of the whole point of "On the origin ...". Did you get past the title? If Darwin was correct then ... QED; the question is pointless.

And the dogmatic certitude? At the beginning of her piece, Ms. Westling states:

[We] need to continue to ask questions, explore possibilities and develop our hypotheses.

Followed in the end by:

... I tell you now, that while evolutionists go about making their arguments and defending their positions against creationism, they will never win me over.

So by "we" she really meant "you".

If you are going through the bother of defending your position, you should at least go through the pretense that you actually care about doing so.