the Greater Nomadic Council

Idiots Abound

Listen to this call to the police from a woman who wanted her hamburger done right. Hilarity.

(via Body and Soul)

Unconsoling Philosophy

What? You haven't read Wordsworth's Intimations Ode? Ah, you should. Then read the rest of this post, another sharing of a paper I recently wrote.

Dear philosophers, I get sad when I think.
Is it the same with you?
    —Charles Simic, "A Letter"

The assumption made by many critics of Wordworth's "Intimations Ode" is that the poem expresses and provides consolation for the poet's loss of "the glory and the dream." Lionel Trilling demonstrates the poem's two answers to the question "Whither is fled the visionary gleam?" and declares the second, more naturalistic answer, the development of the "philosophic mind," to be the true consolation. Helen Vendler takes issue with Trilling's assessment of the poem's structure, but not the interpretation that the development of a "philosophic mind" consoles its possessor for the loss of the glory of childhood. Numerous other critics of Wordworth's poem can be found who likewise accept this assumption about the poem. But just as the word "intimations" in the Ode's title suggests a failure to recover fully the sense of childhood immortality so too does the word suggest the ultimate failure of the consolation the poet explores in the poem. The "philosophic mind," a melancholy faculty, is for Wordsworth an insufficient recompense for what he has lost.

A profitable comparison may be made between Wordworth's Ode and Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, another work that purports to provide the speaker with philosophic consolation for what has been lost. Lady Philosophy appears to Boethius in prison to bring him out of despair and bitterness through orderly, rational argument alone. If, in fact, Wordworth feels the "philosophic mind" to be a sufficient consolation for his loss, might we not expect a similarly rational argument? In part, the poem lacks such an argument because it is, after all, poetry. Whereas Boethius' work is largely prose interspersed with poetry (the poetry used only as a crutch until the prisoner's mind strengthens), Wordsworth speaks only in verse, a genre in which we rarely expect to find a philosophically-sound argument. Even so, the logical contradictions in the poem caused Coleridge much anxiety and led him to object strenuously to Wordworth's inconsistencies. Since we must assume that Wordsworth was fully aware of these contradictions (if he was not when composing, he was during revision) then we must also assume that he makes something other than a logical argument in the poem. Rather than an attempt to display the consoling powers of the "philosophic mind," the poem represents Wordsworth's mutable emotions when confronting his loss. As the Ode ostensibly extols the compensatory virtue of the mature mind, it seems odd that the poem consists almost entirely of emotional outpourings rather than sober philosophical musings.

The immediate objection to this characterization of the poem as more emotional than philosophical is to detail the many threads of philosophic thought woven throughout it. Wordsworth, however, rejects each of these threads in turn. As the first four stanzas of the poem question rather than answer, we may pass lightly over them with only a few comments. One section, though, in stanza 3 does require a closer look:

To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
    And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep
                                            (22–28)

Rather than a feeling of grief, the poet experiences "a thought of grief," a phrase that will haunt the poem's final lines. The quoted lines acquire from the insistent end-stops a certainty and strength to match that which the poet acquires from the mysterious "timely utterance." The rhymes of "grief/relief" and "strong/wrong" separate the poet's emotions into distinct opposites, heightening the shift from grief to strength. Still, the rapid shift remains suspicious, leading us to conclude that rather than true "relief," the poet is here forcing himself to ignore and sublimate his emotions through a meditation on nature. The "cataracts," both waterfalls and occluded eyes, drown out the poet's impious grief. What "Echoes" does he hear? We assume they must be the sound of the cataracts, but the poet listens to the echoes only after his emphatic statement that he will no longer "the season wrong." Perhaps, then, the echoes are of his own words, shouted to quell his heart. The feeling that the poet here sublimates rather than cures his grief increases with the image of "the fields of sleep." Rather than confronting his emotions, he forces them back down, drowns them out with his own and nature's noises, and covers them with sleep. The return of Wordsworth's grief in the next stanza confirms that the "relief" from the "timely utterance" was ineffectual.

The fifth stanza, as the beginning of the answer to Wordsworth's question, provides the first example of unalloyed philosophic thought: the Platonic theory that all humans existed prior to birth as spirits living with the gods. Numerous critics have demonstrated how Wordsworth eventually rejects this idea in favor of other, less supernatural ones, but a focus on the thought content of the fifth stanza misses the more important emotional content. Wordsworth here does not accept or reject the Platonic theory of pre-existence. Instead, he employs the theory as a metaphor able to capture his loss of "the glory and the dream." No one chastises a poet for inconsistency when the poet uses one metaphor in one stanza only to drop it for another metaphor in the next. Wordsworth writes:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
     Hath had elsewhere its setting,
         And cometh from afar:
     Not in entire forgetfulness,
     And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
     From God, who is our home
                                       (58–65)

What better way to express the existential angst felt when pondering the lost mental and emotional states of childhood? The lines also hint at the development of a "philosophic mind" by using an image that attempts to philosophize that persistent sense of loss. A pre-existence among the gods easily substitutes for the child's oceanic feeling of unity with nature that "At length the Man perceives…die away, / And fade into the light of common day" (76–7). Likewise, there is a rational, but not an emotional contradiction between the child's depiction in stanzas seven and eight. Wordsworth's address to the imitative child as "Thou best Philosopher," (111) which so irritated Coleridge for its irrationality, complicates our understanding of what, precisely, comprises the "philosophic mind" with which Wordsworth invests such healing powers. If he considers the child, "Haunted for ever by the eternal mind," to be the best of philosophers, then we can only with difficulty continue to assert that the "philosophic mind" is a mature faculty distinct from callow consciousness despite Wordsworth's later assertion that the "years…bring the philosophic mind" (187).

Another apparent contradiction arises in the all-important ninth stanza. Rather than raising "The song of thanks and praise" for the simple joys and hopes of childhood, Wordsworth praises "those obstinate questionings / Of sense and outward things, / Fallings from us, vanishings; / Blank misgivings of a Creature / Moving about in worlds not realised" (141–6). Given that a large portion of the poem has been a lament for the loss of "the glory and the dream" experienced in childhood, Wordsworth's praise for the sort of probing and questioning of the world that carves out a self separate from nature seems strange. Furthermore, Worthsworth then shifts his praise to "those first affections, / Those shadowy recollections, / Which…Are yet a master light of all our seeing" (149–153). The repeated occurrence of logical contradictions in a poet as philosophical as Wordsworth strongly implies that he intends in the "Intimations Ode" to express emotions more than philosophy. His odd praise of the very process by which he has lost "the glory and the dream" further suggests an attempt, much like that in the poem's earlier stanzas, to convince himself of things which he does not truly feel. By praising the early stages of the development of the "philosophic mind," Wordsworth constructs a persona that desperately wishes to view that mind as compensation for what has been lost—a persona Wordsworth would like to fully inhabit, but cannot.

The last stanza, far from evincing a peaceful resignation, still bears the traces of the poet's desire to be yet again one with nature:

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
           Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
                                          (193–200)

Like his earlier suspicious protestations, the poet again claims to appreciate "even more" the nature with which he was one as a child. The words "lovely" and "yet" recall the second stanza in which the Rose is lovely; yet "there hath past away a glory from the earth" (18). The echo of the second stanza, set apart in a short, indented line amid a stanza of otherwise uniform line lengths, tempts us to read the line not just as "the new-born Day is yet lovely," but also as "the new-born Day is lovely. Yet…" The line conveys the poet's resignation to seeing a beauty that will forever remain external to himself. Similarly, the next several lines may be easily read in two competing ways. The first interpretation, that the eye which gives a "sober colouring" to the clouds is the poet's, fits well in the Romantic tradition of the pathetic fallacy as well as with the poem's emotional tone. The "eye" here also recalls the description of the child in the eighth stanza as an "Eye among the blind" (112). The second reading, however, carries a trace of the poet's attempt to merge himself with nature once again. As anyone who has seen a sunset knows, the clouds take their color from the setting sun, not the viewer's eyes. Indeed, Wordsworth's use of the phrase "an eye" rather than "eyes" lends itself to a reading that sees the eye as a metaphor for the sun. This reading is further strengthened by the following line as the sun (and nature in general) has commonly been considered, in contrast to short-lived humans, immortal. Rising every morning and setting every evening, the immortal sun "hath kept watch" over the rise and fall of whole races. While this dispassionate perspective must be part of the potential compensation of "the philosophic mind," it cannot be ignored that the line fits equally well as a personification of the sun. Although age may bring the wisdom of philosophy (which Plato considers preparation for death), it cannot eradicate the poet's desire to feel the joy he once had, again to see "the visionary gleam." By merging the qualities of mind which he insistently praises in the poem with a description of the sun, the poet, while sublimating the desire in metaphor, gets to eat his cake and have it too. The final lines confirm that the heart, not the head, still rules:

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
                                        (201–4)

Just as "a thought of grief" comes to the poet in the third stanza, here Wordsworth links thoughts rather than feelings to grief. Just as Charles Simic gets sad when he thinks, thoughts in Wordsworth give rise to tears. The recognition, derived from thought and memory, that something has been lost from his childhood prompts the poem. The thoughts "lie too deep for tears," confirming thought's status as prior to and cause of Wordsworth's particular grief. The only recompense for loss provided by "the philosophic mind" is the ability to bury potentially depressing thoughts deeper than emotions can reach. The poem's last lines strike with such power because of the final attempt at sublimation which they represent. They are lines expressing not the strength that derives from overcoming one's emotions, but a tenuously held stoicism that just barely suffices to keep the tears at bay. The "philosophic mind," able somewhat to reinsert its possessor into nature via metaphor (thus explaining why the child, having no need for metaphor, remains the "best Philosopher"), provides a poor compensation for what has been lost—a compensation that may, at any moment, once again fail.

LotR Boring? Blasphemy!

Conscientious Objector discusses some of LotR's problems:

One critic infamously complained that the characters in LotR are "sexless." I find their lack of a sense of humor much more damning. A lot of the characters "smile" and "laugh," but there's something cold in the way they do it; they do so because the situations "call" for a smile or a laugh, not because the characters find amusement welling up within themselves. Can you imagine Elrond laughing a joke, let alone telling one? I can't. "Strider" gets off some funny lines and funny business in Fellowship, but he soon turns into George Washington. Sam calls some of the Elves "merry as children," but you never see them act that way.

My recommendation? Don't read the Silmarillion if you find LotR humorless or dry. While I agree that there's not much humor in the book (though there is a small amount, at least: Tom Bombadil, for example), that's more a function of Tolkien's tone and aims than a real flaw. Perhaps I'm just taking the role of apologist because I love the book so much, but since he was trying to create an epic, it only makes sense that there's little humor. Nobody faults the Iliad for lacking humor do they? I don't know, maybe they do, but such a criticism would be a bit beside the point for either work. Most literature excludes some register or another (ignoring poets like Whitman and Ashbery, who manage to fit just about every tone and register into their poems). Granted, the best writers tend to have a wide range they use, but not all. T.S. Eliot, for instance, has about two notes: weary and sad. That doesn't make him a bad poet or his poems less beautiful. I'm not equating Tolkien's artistry with Eliot's, of course. Tolkien was not a master prose stylist or what one would call a wordsmith. Instead, he excelled at telling tales, creating plots that engage us for thousands of pages. In the process, he does exclude quite a bit of life that had it been included would have made his achievement even greater, but the book would have also lost a bit of its stuffy charm.

Feynman Lectures

This is very cool. Richard Feynman's physics lectures are available as PDF and MP3. I think I'll be downloading this to my DAP for listening.

(via Syaffolee)

Scientific American Apologizes

The editors of SciAm come to their senses:

In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it.

Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

The full letter is available here, but I thought I'd link to the one on SciAm first just to show it's not a joke made up by some blogger.

Jane Eyre: Slut

Ah, just the kind of post I like to read. If only the rest of the blogosphere would stop wasting its potential with politics and realize that the true promise of the Internet is as a big book club.

Radio David Byrne

David Byrne has a streaming radio station. I'm listening to it right now and thoroughly enjoying it. Listen in. It's particularly interesting because it's what Byrne is listening to now—it's like a window into the soundscape of a famous and famously weird musician. Don't blame me if you start wearing giant green fur suits.

A Story of Plagiarism

This story is great. I hope the girl gets kicked out of school or, at the very least, gets put on academic probation. Like the author of the post, I got my degree by doing all the work myself. Amazingly, I even learned a few things that way. Not only does plagiarism hurt those who do it by depriving them of the skills necessary to do the work (how hard is a five page paper, after all? I'm about to write one in the next hour for tomorrow), but if widespread enough, it cheapens the degree for those who don't cheat. I wonder what circle of Hell Dante would put plagiarists in.

(via Pharyngula)

UPDATE: That was fast. I suspect I'm going to be unhappy with the outcome of this.

Before And After for $400

What is "Microsoft Word To Your Mother, Alex."

The Flavin Retrospective

Ludwig and I visited the beautiful Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth this afternoon and we were pleased to see that there was a traveling exhibition that we hadn't seen before. Unhappily, the featured artist was Mr. Dan Flavin (1933-1996), an American minimalist that worked, almost exclusively, in fluorescent light bulbs. Most rooms contained large assemblies of these hideous lights, in one or two colors, arranged in simple geometric patterns. Mr. Flavin discovered the square, the rectangle, the circle, and even (in what appears to be his masterpiece) the grid. It was mostly overwhelmingly pedestrian, but there were one or two pieces that are simply unpleasant to view.

Okay, so what do I know? I know less about art than I do about astrophysics, and that really isn't much. There is plenty of favorable criticism on Mr. Flavin online, and I'm sure he has more fans than I do, but I just don't get it. Often, art is in the vision, not the rendering, and I know it's a tired criticism of modern art that it can't be good if I could create it, but I think my dislike for this exhibition isn't that simple. It seems uninspired, simplistic, derivative, and (sometimes) visually repugnant. What's more, a high school shop student could create one of these things and sneak it into the museum one night, and the most informed art critic couldn't tell the difference.

But don't take my word for it. The Modern will be hosting the exhibition until June fifth. If you have the chance to see it for yourself, I would be interested to hear your opinions.

Show Me Your Breasts

This is a few days old, but well worth the read. I think I remember reading the story a while ago--zookeepers fired for refusing to show their breasts to a gorilla--but I didn't know about the lawsuit that has been filed. Click the link to read Justice Bedsworth's reaction to the absurdity, and be sure to follow his footnotes.

DIY Comics

Create your own. Read those created by others. Make your own characters. Use the large set of those already made. No art skills required. Fun for the whole family. Non-toxic. Via BoingBoing. I just woke up from a long nap.

On Retribution

One of the more interesting discussions to come across the blogosphere in a while is one sparked by Eugene Volokh's support for torture as a punishment for truly despicable crimes (the linked post is his defense, follow the links backwards for the whole discussion; it'll be well-worth your time). This also prompted Volokh to post some potential libertarian objections to the death penalty I had never heard before. I'm not a libertarian, so I don't find many of them very compelling except the 3rd and 4th points. What I do find compelling is the idea that appears to be at the heart of Volokh's and, I suspect, most other people's opinions when it comes to torture and the death penalty: retribution. He discusses this in some length, but still somehow seems to give the issue less importance than I think it has.

To what degree is punishment retribution? To what degree should it be? On some level, this comes down to the balance between justice and mercy. I prefer the latter, but perhaps that just means I'm not hard-minded enough. Naturally I don't discount the necessity of justice; I feel the need for it quite keenly, particularly for the worst of crimes. I often find myself feeling that this or that individual deserves to die, particularly when the crime is one against a child. That feeling, however, does not cause me to doubt the reasons I have for being against the death penalty or torture (the latter appears to be little more than an extreme form of the former). I am against torture for many of the same reasons I'm against the death penalty only more so. In particular, the issues of compassion and human dignity (one's own, not the criminal's) become far more persuasive when considering whether torture is an acceptable punishment. Volokh seems to consider this point one based on "visceral moral intuitions," but I disagree. It is quite possible and even necessary to judge which emotions are acceptable.

The desire for retribution or, more accurately, revenge seems clearly unacceptable for one attempting to lead a civilized, humane, and compassionate life. Why do I equate the desire for retribution with revenge? I realize that retribution is a neutral term whereas revenge is not. The argument in this case, however, is one of the emotional satisfaction achieved from using torture as punishment (Volokh states at one point, "People, it seems to me, have a natural desire to inflict pain on moral monsters"), the very definition of revenge. The question thus becomes not whether torture is just retribution, but if revenge is justified. I find Volokh's proposed punishment almost as abhorrent as the crimes for which it would be prescribed. Majikthise sums it up well:

It's an exciting development for the armchair torture contingent. We've segued from "Could torture ever be an acceptable means to an end?" to "Torture is a morally obligatory punishment that the state should inflict on its own citizens, even if we have to rewrite the Constitution to do it."

I think this is a case where Volokh's hatred of evil has segued into a desire for revenge. It's cloaked in reasonable and polite language, but revenge is still the desire animating his argument. It's one we all fall prey to occasionally, but that does not mean it's an acceptable impulse to indulge. We should treat even the worst of criminals with more than the respect and dignity with which they treated their victims—not for their sake, but our own.

Update: Volokh recants because of this post, a particularly interesting one largely about retribution, by Mark Kleiman. With his thoughts on the topic in my head, I feel I should clarify my retribution/revenge equation. It's not that I don't think retribution is never justified, only that Volokh's specific argument for its justification seemed to be more about revenge than retribution. Clearly justice demands appropriate punishment even for criminals who are no longer a threat. Torturing someone to death, however, goes beyond mere retribution.

On the X Chromosome

I promise not to link to every Pharyngula post, but this one's just too good to pass up, largely because of this paragraph:

Recombination is a kind of repair mechanism; not a clever one, but one that can have long term effects. Imagine a very stupid mechanic who maintains two cars by constantly swapping pieces from one to another. If one has a broken carburetor, at least one car will function. If one has a broken carburetor and the other has a broken alternator, every once in a while in his manic swapping, one of the cars will end up with both functioning components, and the other both broken ones: that means there will be at least one car he can send off the lot. Note that this is not a viable business model for a human garage, but it works well enough in a ruthless sort of way for biology. While it produces junk cars as well as good ones, most of the junkers blow up as they're leaving the lot, so no one survives to complain, and all anyone sees actually traveling down the road are the lucky products of random exchanges, and it's only those lucky drivers who go on to make more cars.

There's a lot more information in the post than just that, but what a wonderfully clear way of explaining recombination. Before I read the post, I had only a vague idea of what it was; now I have a basic understanding not only of the mechanism, but one of the purposes of recombination as well. Plus, it's just a great image.

Russell Jacoby on "Crybaby Conservatives"

Don't miss one of my favorite writers in his preferred role—taking the hypocrites down. Check it out.

Linkfest

It's that time once again (that is, I'm tired of keeping these mails in my inbox). For starters, a quick typing test that does not adjust for accuracy. My scores (each time a different sentence): 102, 110, 120, all with 100% accuracy.

A Thai boxing video with a surprise at the end.

Like that robotic dog, but in feline form and with fur. I suppose it'd be nice not to have to clean a litter box.

Ooo, pretty.

A demo for augmented reality. (Did I already post this one?) Very cool tech.

Naturally, a killing with an iPod was going to happen sooner or later. Just look at the related news blurb, though.

Do you have money you need to waste? Then spend it on this.

Batman: New Times

Check out this CGI Lego-version of Batman starring Adam West and Mark Hamill. It's appropriately corny.

(via Aeiou)

Amen!

Johnathan Mayhew points out the obvious—that Poetry, once the journal that published T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Sylvia Plath (among many other luminaries), now sucks. I cancelled my subscription years ago for precisely this reason. Mayhew, however, does more than just bitch about it; he makes suggestions for how the magazine could be revitalized. Although I don't care much for the specific themes around which he proposes organizing issues, the basic idea appeals to me. Of course, for the concept to work, the editors would need to start choosing good, challenging poetry, not the boring stuff they seem to love. Without changing editors I'm not sure how they could fix that problem.

Daily Show Clips

Without ads and in a nice clean interface, you can now see all the Daily Show clips available so far. Or, if you want to see all 648 of them on one page, go here.

(via BoingBoing)

Comic Book Covers

Oh man, Something Awful (NSFW) has a series of hilarious photoshopped comic book covers up. They get funnier the further in you get, so check them out.

(via Pharyngula)

Lionel Trilling, Complexity, Criticism, and Blogging

A long title for a short post. Amardeep Singh posts some quotes from and thoughts about Lionel Trilling, one of the great critics of the 20th century. As criticism is one of the things various bloggers like to attack (always focusing on the egregious examples rather than the much larger mass of useful and provocative works), it's nice to see someone posting something of a defense of the field while linking such work to blogging.

A Question About Meat

I was going to make this a reply to manny's comment on the Chicken Matrix post, but since I want some answers from people, I thought it best to make it a post on its own. Manny writes:

After watching this it was very hard for me to eat my hot wings.

Really? Why? I ask because I'm interested in how people think about meat. I know when I ate meat, I never really thought about the animals it comes from except in the most abstract way. Once I started to seriously consider the topic, it only took a couple of months for me to decide to become a vegetarian. I'd like to know if my experience was contrary to most other people's. That is, do people think much about the fact that meat is animal muscle, but don't have a problem with it? I can easily come up with half a dozen justifications for eating meat, so I always wonder if people find one of them more convincing than I did and why. So, my dear meat-eating readers, please share your thoughts with me. I promise not to proselytize or criticize. I think the choice is a strictly personal one and am in no way convinced that vegetarianism is right for everyone. I'm just interested in knowing what and how people think about what they eat.

More on Intelligent Design

I apologize for harping on this topic, but Phil at Umbrae Canarum has a post up that puts forward several classic misunderstandings of evolutionary theory that ID proponents tend to use. I respect Phil, but on this topic he's just plain wrong. Since I'm not a biologist, however, I'm going to have to rely on other resources. Thus my post will be heavy on links. Consider this more a guide to refutations than a refutation itself. In other words, follow the links I've provided. They contain the vast bulk of the argument.

Phil writes:

1) The evolution from species to species has suffered from a lack of confirming evidence in archeology and paleontology. The data, therefore, is less than impressive for the evolution theory. Moreover, there are various biological systems that are hard to explain in evolutionary terms, especially "irreducibly complex" systems at the cellular level - in other words, these systems are complex enough that they must be there all at once, or it can't function. Moreover, this "can't function" is in such a way that the materials involved aren't just useless - they are fatal to the organism itself.

This is actually two separate and completely different points. Since the "irreducibly complex" argument is by far one of the most common ones, we'll start with it. Here's an article that takes Michael Behe's definition of IC (Behe is the one who introduced the term), shows its problems on a semantic level, then gives numerous examples of processes that appear to be IC, but have evolved. Another general discussion of IC is in a review of Darwin's Black Box, Behe's book. Here are some articles demonstrating how various things that are supposedly IC have evolved: blood-clotting, photosynthesis, flagellum, and immunity.

The next point is that there's a lack of evidence confirming species to species evolution. Since Phil doesn't provide any specifics for this point, I'm not sure what to say except he's wrong. I assume this is a vague way of saying that there's no fossil evidence for transitional species, a blatantly untrue statement. Here's a FAQ on transitional vertebrate fossils and here's a detailed list of various transitional species with numerous examples and an explanation of the various ways speciation occurs. I would point out that the evidence of hominid evolution is well known and quite strong. If the many proto-humans don't count, then I doubt any other evidence of transitional species would be sufficient to convince otherwise.

2) Moreover, the theory itself suffers problems. One problem is its tendency towards "just-so stories" (an illustration is here). Its major causal functions are often left woefully underdefined. As such, there is a problematic tendency in evolutionary theory (problem #2) towards unfalsifiability (itself not an unproblematic concept, but good enough for purposes here) - or, in other words, there is no biological phenomenon conceivable (short of YHWH Himself coming down and saying, "Yep, I made it all. It was me.") that cannot be "explained," often in a post hoc sort of way, by evolution.

For falsifiability, I would point out that Intelligent Design is, by its very nature, unfalsifiable. Where is the hand of God (or aliens)? How can we prove or disprove it? The idea that Darwinian evolution is not falsifiable is a misunderstanding of the concept (read the discussion thread). For more on this topic, read this. As for the "just-so" stories, the example given seems to be from a documentary, not a valid place to find evidence for or against the theory. I suppose the objection here is that evolution accounts for new discoveries in the fossil record and elsewhere, but that's precisely what all scientific theories are supposed to do. There are also plenty of examples of predictions made by evolutionary biologists that turn out to be true. Just because they can't predict everything in advance doesn't mean that figuring out how evidence fits into a theory discredits that theory. To assume so is a misunderstanding of the scientific process. The real problem with the theory would be if its predictions were found to be wrong or evidence were found that refutes it. Then either the theory would have to be scrapped or modified to fit the facts. For a long list of evidence for macroevolution that includes many predictions that have been verified, read this.

3) This hints at a deeper, philosophical problem. Specifically, evolutionary theory is relying on an outdated notion of science, highly influenced by nineteenth-century naturalism, often nearly mechanistic. So, in terms of its system, it is remarkably closed - the only causes are material causes, all available (at least in theory) to science. So, things like the mind are somewhat problematic (either it is hard to explain, or one runs into an epistemological tailspin, i.e. is the theory truly knowledge or just another highly developed survival technique, with no way for us to tell the difference?). Moreover, evolutionary theory unjustly connects its fortunes to the whole of biological science - arguments for it tend towards saying, "If evolution is brought down, indeed science itself is lost."

Consider how arrogant this is, especially for a science. As a matter of comparison, say that a major party of physicists in the early twentieth century claimed that "Newtonian theory is the height of science - if it falls to these 'relativity' and 'quantum' theories, so falls science!" (no doubt they would be especially up in arms over Einstein daring to mention God so often, immanitized Spinozian God though it be...). By claiming such unqualified certainty in the theory, it basically dismisses any notion that science is both provisional and potentially progresses.

I'm not sure what to say about this. Pretty much all science assumes that there are material causes to effects available to its inquiry. If I'm wrong about this, I hope someone will tell me how evolutionary theory differs in this respect from, say, quantum mechanics or neurology. Is this an argument for unexaminable causes? If so, what are they? Since an unexaminable cause would necessarily be an untestable one, it would also be one that is irrelevant to any branch of science. If it's not testable or knowable, it's not science. That science is limited in this sense is, of course, obvious; science cannot account for poetry or music, nor should it try to. Science's inability to explain a poem does not refute it. As for evolution being connected to the whole of biological science, Phil has it backwards. Evolution is the comprehensive theory that accounts for what we see in biology. It is a theory rather than a hypothesis precisely because of its power to account for the findings of biology. Perhaps the theory is wrong, but there's no evidence that it is and plenty of evidence that it's correct. It is not arrogance to continue using a theory that time and again works. As for the claim that if evolution falls, so falls science, I doubt you could find even a handful reputable scientists who claim that. Theories are subject to change as necessary. To be a scientist is to accept implicitly this fact. Furthermore, the philosophical underpinnings are irrelevant so long as the theory is useful and seemingly correct. Perhaps I'm misreading this point, though, as it's the one that mystifies me most. What branches of science do not assume material causes? How do they test their theories? What good are they?

All that said, for a much better discussion of science's naturalist underpinnings and what this means for evolution and ID, read this article. It also corrects and modifies some of the points I've made above, exemplifying why I'm providing many links rather than relying on my own lack of expertise. For more articles on philosophy and science, check here.

4) This leads to the more sociological and political problem behind evolutionary theory. Its defenders often times sound more like religious zealots in defense of the true faith rather than scientists defending a theory, the scientist Dawkins and the philosopher Dennett being the primary examples of this. By these popularizers, evolutionary theory is claimed as the Truth, indeed apparently the only scientific truth (short of the revolution in astronomy centuries ago) that can claim such a thing - even physics is not so bold. The reason is that the materialistic naturalism of evolution is most amiable to certain world views of life, especially those that remove the notion of God as an ordering factor in the universe (or any existence at all, for that matter). Moreover, it serves another social function - it separates the "intelligent" from the "rubes," the "enlightened" from the "fundamentalists." This is often reflected in the attacks on ID - it is not untypical for a defender of evolution to a priori accuse the ID defender of being a Bible-beating Creation Scientist (i.e. someone who believes in the literal Genesis story, and that it occurred approximately 6000 years ago). That various ID theorists don't even have a religious belief does not stop such accusations - it tends to be easier than dealing with the issues at hand. We have, then, not so much a debate of "faith vs. reason" as much as "critique [ID] vs. faith [evolution]."

This is not a scientific argument but an observation of a social phenomenon, thus not an argument for or against evolution. However, I will grant that there are those who go overboard defending evolution. This is because it is constantly under attack by those who do not understand it, but feel justified in criticizing the theory anyways. Even so, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the theory's applicability or evidence. The fact that science is amenable to those who do not believe in God is simply a side-effect of the fact that science is interested only in testable theories and observable facts. God is neither. Thus, he is not considered a part of science. I point out, however, that there are plenty of Christian or otherwise theistic scientists. The two are in no way mutually exclusive.

The rest of Phil's post is about ID and the value of competing theories in science. I agree that competing theories are great, but ID is not a theory in the scientific sense. At best, it is a hypothesis. As such, it must put forth criteria by which it can be tested and proven. Given that we have around 100 years of evidence for evolution, the onus is upon those who would advance a competing hypothesis to provide evidence. So far, that has not happened. From what I can tell, this is because Intelligent Design proponents are not trying to be scientists. They are trying to tear down evolutionary theory in order to justify religious beliefs, ironic since IDers regularly call evolution proponents "zealots" or "dogmatists." It is not dogmatism to defend a well-supported theory against unreasonable or dishonest attacks.

P.S. It's indicative of the general state of the discussion that both Phil and I spent most of our time discussing evolution, not Intelligent Design. You would think from the titles of our posts he would be defending ID and pointing out the evidence for it while I'd be trying to tear it down; that this is not the case is just another example of how ID is not a serious scientific hypothesis with positive assertions.

Arnold Takes on Junk Food

Finally, someone is running with this important and easily exploited issue. The fact that parents stood by and watched while schools sold out to junk food vendors remains baffling to me.

The Chicken Matrix

No, this isn't PETA's Mootrix video, but a real product called the E-Z Catch Harvester that runs through a flock of chickens and sweeps them onto fast moving conveyer belts. Check out the video. There are scenes that look disturbingly like the dystopian sequences in the Matrix. Interestingly, none of the features listed say anything about protecting the chickens from harm. Imagine that.

(via BoingBoing)

Perry Bible Fellowship

Some funny, funny comics. Although they're all pretty good, here's one to get you started.

(via NSFW Sensible Erection)

More on Tenure

Conscientious Objector has taken up the discussion. I don't have time to respond right now since I'm busy with school work (oh, cruel irony) but will try to read, digest, and comment later. Unless, of course, someone else beats me to it.

Discussing Tenure

Oh, that bugaboo of critics of academe. Those lazy, immoral, and incompetent professors never have to worry about getting fired and rake in gobs of dough for only nine months of work a year. There's a discussion going on at Mt. Hollywood on this topic that I've contributed a little to. Chime in if you're interested in the topic.

Cows Can Think

It seems cows are not simply dumb, cud-chewing morons:

ONCE they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a secret mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited over intellectual challenges, scientists have found.

Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety — they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.

The rest of the article is here. Tell me again why it's ok to eat cows?

Sherlock Holmes

Sir Doyle's stories had a deep effect on my character early on. He taught me to observe closely the world around me in an attempt to remember and make sense of it. Sherlock's discipline shares something with Zen awareness of the moment. However, it seems most people don't understand what sort of weirdo Holmes really is. Warren Ellis gets it, though:

There’s a deep strangeness to Holmes that rarely makes it out into adaptations. One of the first mentions of Holmes made to Dr John Watson – a war veteran with a dodgy left arm – describes a lunatic at loose in a morgue, whacking corpses with a big stick to see if people bruise after death. The walls of his disgusting rooms are slathered yellow from the hundreds of tobacco products he’s lit and let burn out there so that he can study and catalogue the peculiarities of their ashes.

He fails to mention, however, that Holmes was a cocaine addict in the early stories. That trait was changed to a fondness for shag tobacco and playing discordant notes on a violin. One of the passages that has stuck with me for many years now is this one from A Study in Scarlet where Dr. Watson is describing Sherlock Holmes:

His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it.

"You appear to be astonished," he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. "Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it."

"To forget it!"

"You see," he explained," I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help hi
m in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent."

Although I don't agree with this idea, it's one that I've never forgotten. In fact, I was thinking about it just last week for some reason. It reminds me of the fact that our brains work best when the activity is most focused in one area or another. Rather than using only part of our brains being a flaw, it is a sign that we're working at our most efficient. When flailing around for an idea or an answer, the activity will be diffused across many different lobes. When engaged in a task such as writing or problem solving, only the areas necessary are used, an example of efficiency and concentration. Even so, the fact that such bits have stuck with me from my childhood imply the power of Doyle's tales. If you have never read any Sherlock Holmes, you're missing out.