This seems to be a command, along with consequences for not obeying the command.

Several of these signs are located on U.S. Highway 55, in south St. Louis, Missouri. While I’m making fun of the wording of this sign, I’m not trying to make light of the injuries suffered by highway construction workers. According to this site,

More than 1,000 people are killed and 40,000 injured (including drivers) in US highway work zones each year, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Work zone fatalities have increased 50 percent between 1997 and 2004.

I collect quotes (who doesn’t?). Really, it’s a good hobby. It’s cheap and often interesting. When they are really good quotes, it’s like a novel condensed to a mere sentence.

The first two of this set are about one of my favorite topics, rampant materialism. The others all relate closely to one another, but only if you have a wild imagination or if you think of a very broad topic like “meaning of life.” Without further ado:

Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
– Nicolas Boileau Despreaux

Wealth is the number of things one can do without.
– Feodor Dostoyevsky

The trouble is that you think you have time.
– Zen Master

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
– Antisthenes

A hole is nothing at all, but you can break your neck in it.
– Austin O’Malley

War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.
–Anonymous

Never mistake motion for action.
– Ernest Hemingway

(more…)

We like to believe, as Americans, that this country is a meritocracy. The idea—Horatio Alger, Thomas Edison, McGuyver, all emblematic of this notion—that the best qualified rise to the top, that those who can display and apply ability, skill, and intelligence are the ones who are selected—either by themselves or through the recognition of society—to do important jobs and that this, as opposed to elitist canards like family or school affiliation or looks or race, counts for more in this society. We like to believe that we judge people by their competence, not other things. It’s a driving national myth.

We like to tell ourselves that such people are Heroes.

Like most myths, there’s an element of truth to it. It is certainly the case that the opposite of such ability gets derided once exposed and the people who are less capable lose whatever consideration they’ve received. Eventually. Under the right circumstances.

But we all know that as a guiding ethic, merit is like anything else, and does not hold universal sway over our sentiment.

Perversely, many people display what can only be described as fear of people who are genuinely competent and talented, depending on the circumstances. All one need do is look at the condition of regard in which science is held by many people and the way professionals are often mistrusted and we’ve all seen instances where the person at the party who actually knows a thing or three—and dares express that knowledge—often as not ends up not invited back.

It’s a complex and contradictory attitude Americans have toward ability. We admire and respect it—until it contradicts a long-held belief or runs afoul a prejudice or makes us feel, in ourselves, a bit stupid.

It is probably more cloyingly and illogically represented in our general attitudes toward race.

Let me put it as bluntly as possible—in American history, how often has genuine merit been rewarded if the potential recipient is not white? Or male?

This is largely rhetorical. Most people very well know the answer—seldom, and often when such a person does stand out, attempts are made to diminish his or her achievements. We have been persistently whittling away at this problem for a long time now and we may be forgiven if from time to time we seem to feel it has been solved. It takes a shock to remind us how far we have yet to go.

In fact, part of the aftershock ought to be a recognition that this is a problem somehow wired into human nature, and that if we solve it for one group, it will simply move to another.

What kind of shock am I talking about?

Let me point you to this from John Scalzi’s Whatever. Go read it, then come on back here.

A couple of things I note—one, the reporter in question is herself clearly a minority. So one wonders why she would be duped into reporting this in this way without being outraged. The other is, the unattributed assertions made in the report.

But the main problem goes back to the merit argument.

These two people—Barack and Michelle Obama—are representative of our mythical Competent People ideal. They’ve Done It. They are deserving of our respect for their achievements and therefore deserve to be considered on their abilities.

However.

They seem to be of the wrong group. Hmm. How did that happen?

Wrong group? Do we still think that way?

Well, you know, maybe not, but we have this other national ideal that tends to undermine the first one, and that is Winning Is Everything. We talk about fair play and sportsmanship and all that, but we don’t believe in it, not when the possibility of losing is in the mix, and this is a presidential race. In politics, all the stops get pulled out, and if one of the weapons is to be race, well, then, perhaps the engineers of such tactics are not themselves blatant racists, but they have no qualms about using discredited tactics in the all-important attempt to win, merit aside.

Because you really don’t see people very often graciously stand aside for the better qualified. It would be nice if you did, it would say so much to the next generation about what is important. But we’ve debased that coin for 200 + years.

Equally important, though, is the question of why those who put this out there would believe it would have any impact.

Because it will. Because a lot of Americans, though they might never say it, still fear the ramifications of such a possibility.

Which is why I will believe no poll this year. I believe people will be ashamed to admit their prejudices and tell pollsters that they will support Obama, but once they’re inside the voting booth will stop and ask themselves if they’re really ready to see a black man as president.

Unfortunately, this is America. We may surprise ourselves. Or we may see the upcoming election one in which the next president is the one who simply lost least.

Joanna Russ, a teacher and science fiction writer and savvy thinker, published a book in 1983 called How To Suppress Women’s Writing. It is a lucid textbook on cultural oppression. The subjects are women and writing, but the methods and tendencies she lays out apply to virtually any sub-group and occupation. It is worth finding and reading. It delineates the subtle—and not-so-subtle—ways in which we as a culture steal merit from those we don’t wish to see possess it. In the prologue, she writes:

In a nominally egalitarian society, the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which the members of the “wrong” groups have the freedom to engage in literature (or equally significant activities) and yet do not do so, thus proving that they can’t. But, alas, give them the least reall freedom and they will do it. The trick thus becomes to make the freedom as nominal a freedom as possible and then—since some of the so-and-so’s will do it anyway—develop various strategies for ignoring, condemning, or belittling the artistic works that result. If properly done, these strategies result in a social situation in which the “wrong” people are (supposedly) free to commit literature, art, or whatever, but very few do, and those who do (it seems) do it badly, so we can all go home to lunch.

Some will do it well, and then you see the tactics of disenfranchisement take a few steps up the scale of panic and ugliness. Never mind that Hank Aaron actually broke Babe Ruth’s record, he’s black, and shouldn’t have been able to, but since he was about to anyway he had to be prevented. Death threats ensued. Washington Carver was a brilliant chemist, certainly, but look what he did! All his research was based on, well, peanuts. What can one expect from a black man? (It wasn’t, but even so, the denigration ignores the achievement.) Frank Yerby was a brilliant novelist, but he was fluke, the exception that proved the rule that blacks couldn’t write anything other than about themselves. He moved to Spain finally to get away from the racist belittlement of his work.

The list goes on and on. Add now this absurd, obscene attempt to paint Michelle Obama as exactly the same as every white bigot’s worst fear of a welfare queen sitting in the White House.

Merit is ignored. Ignored long enough and thoroughly enough, and it cannot shine through.

At least, so such purveyors of intolerance wish.

It might not work this time. If it doesn’t, it would be nice to think that, for a change, merit counts for more. But it may also be that further attempts like this will trigger another American ideal, that being our almost reflexive sympathy with so-called underdogs. If that puts Obama in the White House, well, goody for us. But it would also be success that ignores merit. It will be a serendipitous achievement based on our national dislike of bullies.

What then will be learned from it all?

If we were, as we would like to believe, concerned with ability and competence above all, then it is inconceivable that George W. Bush could have been elected, even in the first place. Both his opponents are by any measure his superiors in ability.

The truth is, we value comfort more and Bush, in his own way, is comforting to many people. He’s not our better. He’s “just like us” in presentation and, sadly, ability. He doesn’t make us feel inferior (by now, probably, quite the opposite) and he doesn’t challenge us to rise above mediocrity. With Bush you could share a beer and talk about baseball. With Obama? In truth, you probably could, but more likely if the subject moved on to something real—like taxes or foreign policy—most of us likely couldn’t keep up. He understands these things in a way that most of us don’t.

Not because we can’t. Because we have neither the time or patience to really understand them.

How can I say that?

Well, the evidence. If we did understand such things, we wouldn’t have had to put up with Bush for eight years.

And we wouldn’t be afraid of Obama.

Conflict: competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action.

Pornography: (3): the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

What else could it be, other than conflict pornography, when a major media source unnecessarily frames a story in such a way as to concoct a “conflict” in order to arouse a quick intense emotion reaction in its readers? That’s exactly what Newsweek did this week with its cover story: Lincoln vs. Darwin: Who Matters More?

I can imagine what the Newsweek Editors were really thinking: Americans get easily bored unless there is conflict. Even concocted or unnecessary conflicts will do the trick. Let’s turn Lincoln against Darwin to sell more advertising. Just as we’ve turned every election into a horse race rather than a sober choice. Let’s conjure up conflicts everywhere so that Americans don’t get distracted and thus turn away to watch one of the dozens of sports contests playing at every hour of the day. Let’s frame all of our stories as conflicts so that Americans don’t run off and watch any of innumerable movies where violent conflict appears to be the plot itself, rather than a means to a higher end.

Americans can’t help themselves when there is a conflict to behold. The corporate media knows that Americans are war-mongers. They know that when we are troubled, we are always relieved to know that we can go to war. As we’ve repeatedly done in Latin America. After all, war is movement. War is doing something. Not going to war is nothing. War is conflict. All movement is progress. Therefore, War is progress. Peace is boring. Darwin is boring. Lincoln is boring. But Lincoln versus Darwin is a conflict and thus it is interesting. Just like attacking Iran is more interesting because it is laden with conflict rather than peaceful resolution based on compromise.

Therefore, let’s not have any more stories based on resolved conflict. Let’s not herald two great men. Let’s pit them against each other. Just like we’ve done with God versus Allah. Or gays versus straights. Or Blacks versus Whites. Or Liberals versus Conservatives.

Human animals are rigged to give immediate and sustained attention to conflict. We need to be more aware of our propensity because we are so easily manipulated by those who choose to frame their communications as conflict when, in reality, other frames are much more appropriate. Because we are so vulnerable to apparent conflict, manipulative news media can make irrelevant things look relevant and un-compelling things look compelling. The news media all too often feeds our base craving for stories full of conflict. For a lot of evidence, just check out your local TV news. Huge issues involving the survival of the American way of life (exhaustion of resources, overpopulation and white collar systemic fraud) are overlooked. Rather, we get massive doses of the local crime report and sports. A bit of conflict will make just about any story look compelling.

But our yearning for conflict is addictive, just like our yearning for sweets, fatty or sugary foods, drugs, physical possessions and (for some of us) indiscriminate sex. These cravings run deep in human animals. We need to be made more aware of them, so that we don’t pursue warped priorities.  We could know more about them if we studied Darwin, even if we don’t worry about whether he was more important than Lincoln.  If we take that time to know more about the biology of human animals, maybe we wouldn’t run around getting mesmerized by conflict pornography.

This article at MSNBC explains the history of the term “nervous breakdown.” It’s rarely used now, except in pop culture.

The term — a vague catch-all phrase that could mean anything from a psychotic episode to having a bad day — is not a medical term, doctors say, but it was a popular one that was gentle, non-specific and therefore non-threatening, and could serve as a cover.

In previous decades, those with “nervous breakdowns” would simply disappear, because we had little understanding of what was causing the problem and few treatments for bringing the person “back.”

“The world has changed dramatically in the last 50 years or so, in terms of our understanding of mental disorders,” said Dr. Darrel A. Regier, director of the American Psychiatric Association’s division of research. “When I was a kid, there were references to relatives or neighbors, who had a ‘nervous breakdown’ and had to go to a hospital, and dropped out for a period of time, and nobody would really be very specific about what the nature of the illness was.”

Treatments varied from the “rest cure,” isolation and preventing all stimulation in the 19th century (described by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in her 1891 short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”) to hydrotherapy, electric shock treatments, insulin treatment and lobotomy in the 20th century. Patients who were hospitalized often faced long-term commitments.

“People are no longer just disappearing from the community in the same way that they did when that term was coined and was in use,” Regier said. “The major emphasis now with the mentally ill is on recovery.”

Reading this article made me wonder whether we should bring back this non-specific term to enable over-stretched people to take a break from their routines, without the stigma of “mental illness,” in order to recharge.   This article also reminded me of a friend who recently went on a Catholic Jesuit retreat:  a 3-day stay at a 90-acre wooded compound where those attending bring no electronic devices and are discouraged from talking the entire time. The purpose is to meditate and pray intensely.   My friend said that he finds this to be a valuable experience (he attends once per year).

You read that right! No reader of Dangerous Intersection, radical materialist or hard-bitten skeptic believes in science. To say otherwise is to give a false impression of what science actually is. Science is not something in which a person believes or does not believe. Science is not a belief system; it has no holy screeds or sacred tenets. It is merely a tool, a method of gleaning knowledge, and the language used in reference to it should reflect this.

What on earth am I ranting about? Well, it goes back a few years to the Discovery Institute, and spans all the way to the present with Ben Stein’s film Expelled. The intelligent design/evolution debate has become quite the pop topic, and hence, the endless battle of science vs. religion has come into everyday discussion as well. Everyday people in normal daily settings run through these issues, turning any public place into a potential battleground.

I’ve heard a lot of the less experienced science advocates say things about science that frankly aren’t accurate. While these people mean very well, they fail to frame their debates properly, and the content of the discussion suffers for it. Since science vs. religion has become as much a layman’s debate as an expert’s one, I think the time has come for those of us on the science side of things to agree on the language we should use.

I have no expertise in science, religion or philosophy, I have no refined understanding of the psychology of persuasion, and I am no orator. However, I still have the gall to make a few semantic suggestions for any person who plans to engage in a lengthy discussion on evolution, intelligent design, or the general clash between religion and science. My tips, and their justifications, are as follows: (more…)

I don’t want no god on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
‘Cause the soul of no body knows
how a flower grows… Oh how a flower grows . . .

“Longer Boats,” by Cat Stevens (now known as Yusuf Islam).

Why are so many religious people uncomfortable with so many scientists? I can think of several reasons.

According to many Believers, scientists are arrogant know-it-alls. Believers see scientists as emotionally sterile lab-dwellers who flaunt their white coats and their fancy lab equipment.

Scientists exacerbate the situation by speaking and writing using esoteric language that makes science-phobes feel ignorant. By using such difficult concepts and language, scientists have raised the bar, which excludes many folks from joining scientific discussions.

It’s not like the “good old days,” where people were generally informed enough to join many conversations regarding science (or social science). Things are different now. Those who want to join a discussion regarding evolution, stem cells, or cosmology (to take a few examples) would be well-advised to first spend at least a week in the library reading several reputable books on these topics. This is a far greater time commitment than it takes to go to church. It’s a lot easier to accuse scientists of being “elitist” or to hurl Bible quotes than it is to take the time to responsibly prepare so that one can meaningfully participate in scientific discussions. Those who put their trust in their church leaders on matters of science are often not willing to make such an investment, however. They prefer the opinions of non-scientist preachers over those of real-life scientists. In doing this, they engage in religionism (see definition #3 here).

Making matters worse for Believers, scientists and other intellectuals have had the audacity to disprove a steady stream of religious claims. The Earth is obviously older than 6,000 years. The Shroud of Turin is a fake. The clumps of 60 cells we call blastocysts are biologically incapable of thinking or feeling (despite claims of “souls”), and not all of the words of the Bible are authentic. The list goes on and on. Almost every time scientists focus their methods on religious claims (the ones that are amenable to testing, anyway), those religious claims tend to crumble. Methodical and rigorous evidence-based analyses keep making fools of religious folks, especially literalist Believers.

It makes it even more painful for Believers that most world-class scientists have no patience with religion and they are getting more vocal about it every day. A new wave of books, including Daniel Dennett’s 2007 effort, “Breaking the Spell” rallies the troops of scientists to put religion itself under the microscope.

In the minds of Believers, the scientists have no plans to stop until they have completely destroyed everything that is sacred or moral. Look at all of the damage that they’ve already done by promoting the works of Darwin, who has A) “demoted” humans to the level of animals; B) promoted the idea that nature’s great function and beauty randomly happened; and C) made a formidable argument that nothing is truly immoral anymore because there is no longer any need for God.

Worse yet, Believers can plainly see that the scientific establishment has gained command of magic that really works (as opposed to religious magic). Those damned scientists have figured out how to build airplanes that really fly and they’ve designed diagnostic tests that really show why a person is sick. Contrast these undeniable accomplishments to the track record of Believers: prayers that don’t really heal, predictions of the end of the world that fail and promises of heaven that have absolutely no basis in fact.

That’s how many (though certainly not all) Believers see the situation. Many religious faithful are thus become motivated by what Nietzsche termed ressentiment: the transfer of the pain that accompanies feelings of inferiority onto an external scapegoat, coupled with an urge for vengeance against those who are noble.

But it gets even worse for Believers. What gripes them more than anything else is that so many scientists act like they know it ALL when they don’t really know it all. They don’t really know that there is no heaven! They can’t disprove that I talk with God in my prayers! They weren’t there when the universe was created. So why are they so certain that they are right where scientific facts collide with religious factual claims?

To many religious folks, scientists constantly threaten social traditions in an arrogant and ignorant way. Therefore, many members of conservative religions don’t merely disagree with scientists on particular issues. No, they disparage all of science (except the science that helps them disparage science, such as the science that allows them to possess those marvelous computers on which they rant about “arrogant” scientists). When this level of frustration festers, it can even culminate in the election of a President who gains immense support when he, himself, disparages science.

If the above descriptions are even half-true, no wonder scientists are the targets of so much animosity these days!

Is there anything we can do about this sad state of affairs? Perhaps there is. It would involve a reframing of what it means to be a scientist. It has to do with publicly recognizing serious limitations of science. It involves a recognition that science is a “sacred” endeavor.

I have just finished reading a provocative new article by Stuart Kauffman: “Breaking the Galilean Spell.” Kauffman is a professor of biological sciences, physics and astronomy. He is actively involved at the Santa Fe Institute and he is the author of a book on complexity that inspired me: At Home in the Universe: the Search for the Laws of Self Organization (1995). Kauffman’s writings are both rigorous and poetic.

I sense that Kauffman feels the rampant distrust that many people have regarding scientists. Although Kauffman doesn’t mention the fever-pitched ressentiment felt by many Believers, I suspect that this ressentiment motivated Kauffman to write “Breaking the Galilean Spell.” (more…)

Imagine that a neighbor walks up today and tells you that he really cares about you.   In fact, he loves you like a daughter/son and he wants to show his love.  You might be delighted to hear such an expression of affection. 

Then imagine that he tells you that he wants to prove to you that he cares for you.  He wants to prove it in a way that you will never doubt the depth of his caring.  

You would probably be thinking that he’s going to do something nice.  Maybe he will give a big donation to charity in your name.  Or maybe he will go buy you something nice, or take you to dinner at a good restaurant.  But then he surprises you.

He reminds you that he has an adult son named Bill (which you knew, because you know Bill).  He then tells you that he is going to let a mob of goons torture and murder Bill in a bloody spectacle, for you!

You are aghast, but he continues on.

He tells you that he is going to let that mob drive large nails through Bill’s hands and feet, for you, to prove that he cares about you.   For a grand finale, he is going to allow this sadistic crowd to jab a spear through Bill’s side, to make sure that every drop of blood has been drained from Bill’s body.

It would be patently obvious to you that decent people don’t “show their love” by allowing their loved ones to be murdered.   At this point you are thinking that your neighbor is nuts and probably highly dangerous, because your neighbor’s logic points to an eternal regress.  If he lets Bill (his beloved son) get killed to show his love for you, then someday he might allow you to be killed to “show his love” to someone else. Where might this ever stop? 

The much bigger problem, of course, is that being complicit in murder is not a healthy way to show love to anyone.   Decent human cultures prohibit gratuitous murder.  We deplore those who allow mergers to happen when they could intervene and stop them.  Facilitating murder is a warped and disturbing attempt to demonstrate love.  

Similarly, the claim that God sacrificed his Son to show his love for us appears to be a blatant non sequitur.  It shouldn’t make sense for anyone, anywhere.  Except that it does make sense to Christians. Christians make a jarring and nonsensical exception for God, who is supposedly the most intelligent and loving Being in the universe.  (more…)

As some of you may know, I am a dedicated reader of Language Log, the blog where a bunch of linguists hold forth on a variety of topics, sometimes only tangentially related to linguistics. Their posts ridiculing ignorant peeve-rants about the degeneration of English are hugely enjoyable; but another frequent theme is bad science writing and modern forms of innumeracy.

However, in this post Mark Liberman singles out an article in the New York Times Magazine for praise for finding a way to explain how “small but statistically reliable differences in group distributions” should not be seen as “essential properties of the groups themselves.”

The article profiles a school that is changing its educational policies based on hack theories about male and female brains:

On an unseasonably cold day last November in Foley, Ala., Colby Royster and Michael Peterson, two students in William Bender’s fourth-grade public-school class, informed me that the class corn snake could eat a rat faster than the class boa constrictor. Bender teaches 26 fourth graders, all boys. Down the hall and around the corner, Michelle Gay teaches 26 fourth-grade girls. The boys like being on their own, they say, because girls don’t appreciate their jokes and think boys are too messy, and are also scared of snakes. The walls of the boys’ classroom are painted blue, the light bulbs emit a cool white light and the thermostat is set to 69 degrees. In the girls’ room, by contrast, the walls are yellow, the light bulbs emit a warm yellow light and the temperature is kept six degrees warmer, as per the instructions of Leonard Sax, a family physician turned author and advocate who this May will quit his medical practice to devote himself full time to promoting single-sex public education.

Are there differences between male and female brains? Research findings suggest there are some. Does any brain research yet suggest that differential single-sex education is superior to co-ed classrooms? Hardly.

Scans of boys’ and girls’ brains over time also show they develop differently. Analyzing data from the largest pediatric neuro-imaging study to date — 829 scans from 387 subjects ages 3 to 27 — researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health found that total cerebral volume peaks at 10.5 years in girls, four years earlier than in boys. Cortical and subcortical gray-matter trajectories peak one to two years earlier in girls as well. This may sound very significant, but researchers claim it means nothing for educators, or at least nothing yet. “Differences in brain size between males and females should not be interpreted as implying any sort of functional advantage or disadvantage,” the N.I.M.H. paper concludes. Not one to be deterred, Sax invited Jay Giedd, chief of brain imaging at the Child Psychiatry Branch at N.I.M.H., to give the keynote address at his N.A.S.S.P.E. conference in 2007. Giedd spoke for 90 minutes, but made no comments on schooling at all.

One reason for this, Giedd says, is that when it comes to education, gender is a pretty crude tool for sorting minds. Giedd puts the research on brain differences in perspective by using the analogy of height. “On both the brain imaging and the psychological testing, the biggest differences we see between boys and girls are about one standard deviation. Height differences between boys and girls are two standard deviations.” Giedd suggests a thought experiment: Imagine trying to assign a population of students to the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms based solely on height. As boys tend to be taller than girls, one would assign the tallest 50 percent of the students to the boys’ locker room and the shortest 50 percent of the students to the girls’ locker room. What would happen? While you’d end up with a better-than-random sort, the results would be abysmal, with unacceptably large percentages of students in the wrong place.

Of course, in elementary school the height/locker room assignment would be almost completely random, and in middle school, there might be more girls than boys in in boys locker room, and vice-versa. A better analogy would be an adult fitness club that made locker room assignments based on height. How many people reading this might find themselves in the “wrong” locker room on this basis? And remember that the correlation between gender and height is stronger than the correlation between gender and brain development rates, (and also remember that there’s no evidence that the differential development rate is related to learning in any way.)

While being assigned to the wrong locker room would no doubt be traumatic, think about the harm that is caused by teaching girls that it is unfeminine to to like reptiles, or depriving boys of opportunities to learn how to work together cooperatively.

It’s time to chuck the “evidence-free rubbish” out of our schools.

opsimath

Part of Speech:   noun
Definition:   a person who becomes a student or learner late in life
Etymology:   Greek ‘late in learning’

[from dictionary.com]

If you’ve ever had this thought that intelligent people never believe things they can’t prove, consider that some of the world’s sharpest and most skeptical minds have confessed in writing that they too believe things that they can’t prove.  You can read all about it in the 2005 Annual Question at Edge.org.  The question:  “What Do You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?”

Here are a few “confessions” from some many people whose works I have read and admired.  What follows are quoted excerpts from each of the short essays mentioned:

NICHOLAS HUMPHREY (economist and author): I believe that human consciousness is a conjuring trick, designed to fool us into thinking we are in the presence of an inexplicable mystery. Who is the conjuror and why is s/he doing it? The conjuror is natural selection, and the purpose has been to bolster human self-confidence and self-importance—so as to increase the value we each place on our own and others’ lives.

STEPHEN KOSSLYN  (Psychologist):  Your mind may arise not simply from your own brain, but in part from the brains of other people.  Compare with this article about Andy Clark’s concept of the extended self.

SUSAN BLACKMORE (Psychologist): It is possible to live happily and morally without believing in free will. As Samuel Johnson said “All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience is for it.”

W. DANIEL HILLIS (Physicist, Computer Scientist): I know that it sounds corny, but I believe that people are getting better. In other words, I believe in moral progress. It is not a steady progress, but there is a long-term trend in the right direction—a two steps forward, one step back kind of progress.

ROBERT R. PROVINE (Psychologist and Neuroscientist): Human Behavior is Unconsciously Controlled. Until proven otherwise, why not assume that consciousness does not play a role in human behavior?

STEWART KAUFFMAN (Biologist, Santa Fe Institute): Is there a fourth law of thermodynamics, or some cousin of it, concerning self constructing non equilibrium systems such as biospheres anywhere in the cosmos?

SCOTT ATRAN (Anthropologist): There is no God that has existence apart from people’s thoughts of God.

JOSEPH LEDOUX (Neuroscientist): I believe that animals have feelings and other states of consciousness, but neither I, nor anyone else, has been able to prove it.

DANIEL C. DENNETT (Philosopher): I believe, but cannot yet prove, that acquiring a human language (an oral or sign language) is a necessary precondition for consciousness.

RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D. (Psychiatrist & Coauthor, Why We Get Sick): I can’t prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage from believing in things they can’t prove. I am dead serious about this. People who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist on evidence before they believe and act.

MARGARET WERTHEIM (Science writer and Commentator): We all believe in something and science itself is premised on a whole set of beliefs. Above all, science is founded on the belief that things are comprehensible and that by the ingenuity of our minds and the probing of ever more subtle instruments we will ultimately come to know It All. But is the All inherently knowable? I believe, though I cannot prove it, that there will always be things we do not know—large things, small things, interesting things and important things.

I’m going to be using this set of essays by scientists and skeptics, someday, as a springboard for (what I feel is) an important point about human beliefs and human relationships:  All of us, even the highly articulate skeptics among us, act upon beliefs we cannot prove.

Rest assured that I won’t be making a claim that all unproved beliefs are equal.  Nonetheless, the above essays seems to serve as a good starting point for discussing the wideness of the intellectual chasm between (non-fundamentalist) Believers and non-believers. I suspect that once we exclude fundamentalists from the conversation, that chasm is not quite as wide as it is often portrayed to be by skeptics.  More to come, someday . . .

As some of you may know, bloggers like us are destroying “our economy, our culture, and our values.” At least according to one Andrew Keen, who also says we are “betraying Judeo-Christian ethics,” but we knew that already.

The Knackered Hack has an interesting response to Mr. Keen, recalling a time not so long ago, in a country that no longer exists:

…Keen’s attack on the amateur and self-published is, in my view, a little bit Stalinistic.

I’d like to contrast the world he defends, where what we watch, hear and experience should be mediated by professionals, with one still in the recent memory where to self-publish was a political and democratic act and a gesture of defiance.

Samizdat, (Russian for self-publishing) was the process whereby some of the most important literary and politicial texts of the Soviet era were preserved and circulated. Each recipient of one of these precious, dangerous texts would make additional copies, either handwritten or typed with carbon paper, and pass them on.

Later, when cassette tape players became available, another culture of magnitizdat grew up as a clandestine distribution network for singers like Vladimir Vysotsky, whose material was too edgy for the official state recording company.
Which brings us (again following the lead of the Knackered Hack) to Viktor Tsoy of the Russian band Kino, the most famous rock star you’ve probably never heard of, and certainly the only internationally famous rock star who never gave up his day job (as a boiler operator in an apartment building; you can see him at it here.)

The Knackered Hack writes:

Tsoy and Kino are noteworthy for a number of reasons in the history of 20th century culture, and arguably much more iconic than all those indie bands that we neurotic boy-outsiders modelled ourselves after in our youths — those that were invariably selling out while pretending not to.

(Aside: The part about neurotic boy-outsiders resonates with me, as a former girl outsider. I distinctly remember buying my first Talking Heads album - More Songs About Buildings and Food - at a record store in the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska - about the most uncool place imaginable to buy such a record, now mostly known as the scene of a shooting rampage.
The record store clerk was impressed with my choice, I remember, and flirted with me. This was the first hint I had that a certain taste in music might be a possible key to success with really existing boys, as opposed to the ideal boy of my dreams, who hung out at CBGB’s and generally lived in a realm of mythic coolness beyond my reach.
Aside within aside: My record collection was later confiscated by my parents - the concept of a band named the Sex Pistols was just too much for them. If you want to get a picture of what’s it like to believe that rock and roll can save your mortal soul, while living with parents who believe only Jesus can save souls and that the electric guitar is the Devil’s invention, think Lane and Mrs. Kim on the Gilmour Girls, but without the fixation on health food. )

Back to Viktor Tsoy. Tsoy was born in 1962; his mother was Russian, his father Korean. The years of his musical career, from the time he started writing songs at seventeen, to his tragic death in 1990, coincide with a momentous period in Russian history. In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan; 12 years later the Soviet Union collapsed. (Something to think about, Bush & co.) (more…)

Missouri’s first State Poet Laureate.  Walter Bargen.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am by this.  Walter is a first-rate poet and, just if not more importantly, a decent human being.

He will be formally introduced on February 13th at the state capitol.  After that, he will serve a two-year-term, administered by the Missouri Center for the Book .  We are enormously proud of this and look forward to a fruitful affiliation.

The shameless promotional part:  if anyone feels generous and wishes to support an institution whose goal to the elevation and promotion of the literary arts, go to our website, find the P.O. Box address, and…you know…

We will appreciate it.

Meanwhile, congratulations to Walter Bargen and a thank you to all who support the arts.

Edge.org has just released it’s Annual Question.  This year’s version: WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?”  I’ve read a couple dozen answers so far. As always, the answers are intellectually stimulating, challenging to common sense and entertaining.

Television producer Karl Sabbagh weighs in this year with his realization that expertise has serious limitations.  I agree with him that expertise is not necesarily an indication of all-round wisdom, yet there is a general tendency to think otherwise:

I used to believe that there were experts and non-experts and that, on the whole, the judgment of experts is more accurate, more valid, and more correct than my own judgment. But over the years, thinking — and I should add, experience — has changed my mind. What experts have that I don’t are knowledge and experience in some specialized area. What, as a class, they don’t have any more than I do is the skills of judgment, rational thinking and wisdom. And I’ve come to believe that some highly ‘qualified’ people have less of that than I do.

I now believe that the people I know who are wise are not necessarily knowledgeable; the people I know who are knowledgeable are not necessarily wise. Most of us confuse expertise with judgment. Even in politics, where the only qualities politicians have that the rest of us lack are knowledge of the procedures of parliament or congress, and of how government works, occasionally combined with specific knowledge of economics or foreign affairs, we tend to look to such people for wisdom and decision-making of a high order.

I’ve been long-intrigued by Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil.  Philip Zimbardo turns that concept on its head in an article from Edge, “The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism.”   (you’ll need to scroll down to the z’s).  Zimbardo’s article appears as one of a series of articles responding to the question: “What is your dangerous idea?”  [Here's a more elaborate version of Zimbardo's article; a careful reading will be richly rewarded.]

Those people who become perpetrators of evil deeds and those who become perpetrators of heroic deeds are basically alike in being just ordinary, average people.

The banality of evil is matched by the banality of heroism. Both are not the consequence of dispositional tendencies, not special inner attributes of pathology or goodness residing within the human psyche or the human genome. Both emerge in particular situations at particular times when situational forces play a compelling role in moving individuals across the decisional line from inaction to action.

This view implies that any of us could as easily become heroes as perpetrators of evil depending on how we are impacted by situational forces.

Zimbardo makes a good point, but why stop there? Why assume that only great moments of good or evil are banal?  Isn’t banality of conduct another instance of “universal acid” (Daniel Dennett’s term for a concept that seems to have widespread application in untold domains of experience–natural selection was Dennett’s favorite example)?  Couldn’t we actually expand Zimbardo’s idea and talk about the “banality of everything,” and wouldn’t that actually be a backdoor way of challenging that most hallowed of human constructs: free will?

After all, there are an infinite number of constellations of environmental triggers out there and it might thus be impossible to run a controlled study to isolate “our” influence in any action we take, to the exclusion of the complex panaply of environmental triggers surrounding us.  We love to think that we are in control of our actions, but what if the our surroundings play us with environmental triggers like a jazz player brings out lush chords by striking complex patterns of keys on a piano?  When the music sounds good, we inevitably get greedy and claim the “good” result as our own.

When we notice our own good behavior, we do convince ourselves that our decision and or behaviour was totally our own.  Most of us can’t deal with any other possibility when we are proud of ourselves.  Same thing with the greatness of our heroes.  We can’t bear to think that our heroes are puppets with millions of strings stretching out in all directions out into the environment and down into their biology, and that our heroes’ admirable conduct was not meaningfully their own.

Zimbardo’s point is a good one because it points out how inconsistent we are when it comes to attributing responsibilty for human conduct.  It’s funny how readily we explain those moments when we act foolishly by blaming numerous factors external to ourselves (bad luck, bad education, bad peers, bad circumstances).  When we do well, though (or when our heroes do well), it’s all about internal character.  We love to take (and give) the credit but not the blame. 

Zimbardo doesn’t merely identify the phenomenon of the banality of heroism.  He advocates the need to study the psychology of heroism.  He argues that we ought to be studying ways to design social environments in such a way as to encourage heroic actions–encouraging ordinary peole to act in heroic ways.  Here’s his basic plan to study the banality of heroism:

My research reveals how easy it is to create environments that will bring out the worst in people. Now the time has come examine the other side of the coin and discover how we create environments that bring out the best in human nature, that truly enable ordinary people to go beyond resisting temptation to challenging its domain.

I’m pondering an idea which is certainly not original, though it is an idea powerful enough to make a mockery of any moral system that looks to the consequences of actions to characterize the moral quality of those actions. 

Here’s the thought:  Every so often something really bad happens to me.  I’m in an auto accident.  I lose my job.  My marriage fails.  My children ignore me.   Something expensive breaks.  Someone I care about dies. My attempts to impress someone important go completely unnoticed.  I spend endless hours on a project and it does not turn out the way I had hoped.

Each of these things are the types of things we would easily categorized as “bad.”  They are so obviously bad that we can predict that our friends, upon hearing of these things, will console us.  But are “bad” things really bad?

After all, while I’m healing from that auto accident, an incredibly important thought occurs to me and I change my life for the “better.”  Even though I’ve lost a job I cherished, I then find another job which I like even better.  After my marriage fails, I make some changes in my life and I encounter a new love.  When my children ignore me, I learned to pay more attention to them and then I benefit from an improved parent-child relationship.  That thing that broke is something I didn’t need in my life anyway.  The death of my close friend inspires me to be a better person.  When that person I was trying to impress ignores me, I realize that I should have been spending my time doing other sorts of things anyway.

On countless occasions, a “disaster” turns out to be a great excuse to do something we should have done anyway. When one door closes shut, three other doors open wide.  And I’m not talking only about tiny disappointments.  I’m talking about major disasters.  The sorts of things that you are absolutely certain are horrible. But in the long run, they often aren’t. Fifteen years later (far enough removed that you don’t feel the intense mental or physical pain that you felt in the past), you realize that that “bad” thing was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to you, even though you hated it at the time and you were certain that it was ruining your life.  You did something really stupid, for instance, but you learned a big lesson and never again screwed up in that way again.

Someone might object that natural disasters, all genocides and at least some wars are absolutely bad, given the horror, the permanency of death and the lasting pain. That is certainly true from the perspective of many individuals. Such events, however, are often catalysts for widespread change that prevents future events of even greater magnitude. Perhaps a hurricane provokes officials to implement a new warning and rescue system. Perhaps the horror of a genocide causes society to reevaluate bigotted attitudes and helps stave off future genocides of even greater magnitude. Wars always provoke episodes of heroism within the insanity of the violence and they do sometimes cause the defeat of a malignant regime (e.g., the defeat of Hitler in WWII). There is the possibility that even a senseless war will teach long term lessons that might avoid future senseless wars (though this often doesn’t happen). 

The other side of the coin consists of acts which seem “good,” that result in widespread horror.  I would put rampant consumerism in that category.  (more…)

An ad hominem attack occurs when a person attacks the character of a person rather than attacking what that person said.  Here’s an example:

“Don’t listen to Tommy.  He’s a big fat slob.”

This argument is not valid because the attack has nothing to do with the content of Tommy’s statement (whatever it was).

Tonight I was wondering whether there was a term for the opposite of an ad hominem argument.  In other words, what do you call the fallacy where you support and defend a person’s statement (whatever it was) on the basis that you admire a person and you refuse to see his or her mistakes and faults.

Here’s an admission that Rush Limbaugh was often engaging in “ad hominem” arguments in favor of Republicans (he made this statement immediately after the 2006 election):

I’m just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don’t think deserve having their water carried.

This statement of Limbaugh shows that his arguments for the alleged correctness of various Republican positions had nothing to do with the merits of those positions.  He simply liked Republicans (or maybe he liked other Republican positions). 

I’ve searched the Internet for a term to represent this logical fallacy of arguing for a person’s position because one favors that person.  I have come up empty.  Here’s what I propose, based on no formal training in Latin (but making reference to this resource):  ex hominem instead of ad hominem. “Ex” means “out of, from; by reason of; according to; because of, as a result of.” 

My preacher says that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.  This is true, because my preacher is a holy and decent man. 

If you listen for them, you’ll hear as many ex hominem arguments as ad hominem arguments.  Many of our justifications for believing experts is based upon this fallacy, because we don’t really know enough to know whether experts are on-target with their conclusions.  We are often evaluating their opinions on things like their honesty or their mannerisms, because we don’t really know enough to judge them on whether they are carefully coming to the proper conclusions.

When you hear any such arguments, feel free to identify them as “ex hominem” arguments.  When you get those puzzled looks, remind the people that “good” and “smart” people can say incorrect things just as “bad” or “ignorant” people can sometimes speak the truth.  That’s why we need ad hominem and ex hominem labels to describe these two related fallacies.

One of my favorite current cartoonists is Brooke McEldowney. I discovered his work online a few years ago in the form of “A Fairy Merry Christmas”. In the interest of copyright non-violation, I’ll leave it to youse to Google up your own excerpts.

This cartoon series was an NEA sponsored 6 week series. Finally, a use of NEA funds that anyone can appreciate. Except that it only appeared online, and maybe in a few papers. Anyway, I was captivated by the sense of humor. It doesn’t hurt that McEldowney has a magnificent grasp of sensual line in his figure drawing.

After its conclusion, I found his two other strips, 9 Chickweed Lane, and Pibgorn. It took my local paper about another 2 years to discover either one of these, but I’ve been reading them online. (Pibgorn is temporarily without a home as of this writing).

Well, I’ve started reading the cartoonist’s blog, wherein he refers to his teenage daughters as Snark Major and Snark Minor. This led me to one of the Snarks own blog, currently written from her post as a freshman at Aarkvard University (arch rival of Dale, you know).

So, if you want to follow a mental roller coaster of exceptionally twisted and oblique prose, check these out. I had enough fun there to be willing to impose it on yall.

The state of Missouri has never had an official poet laureate.  Like many people, I didn’t know that, although unlike many of those many people, I should have.  One of the hats I wear (besides the one in the cool profile photo above) is the president of the Missouri Center for the Book.

What, you may ask, is the Missouri Center for the Book and what, furthermore, does it have to do with state poets laureate?

I’m so glad you asked.  The Missouri Center for the Book (hereafter known as MCB) is the state affiliate to the Library of Congress Center for the Book.  All 50 states have such an institution now, and we are all as different in our structure and specific goals as those states.  The common thread is that we are all dedicated to promoting what we call the Culture of the Book.  This includes authors, certainly, but also publishers, editors, reviewers, literature teachers, schools.  We see all these things as inextricably part and parcel of that culture, though obviously authors are the most visible part.

We do not do remedial reading work.  There are other agencies that do that and do it far better than we could.  That’s not our mandate.

In our heyday, the first several years after our founding in 1993, we did all sorts of things to promote the idea of books and reading, mostly through the mechanism of conferences which addressed certain themes.  We had notable guests, lots of writers and publishers, an open forum.

And then, as happens in such things, funding slipped away and we did smaller and smaller programs.

Among the things we do is administer the state Letters About Literature contest, which is a very cool program for three levels of students, primary to secondary, in which a student writes a letter to the author of a book that has had a significant impact on that student.  We select the best, the winners go on to a national contest.  Some of these letters, even from very young students, are tremendous.  They give me hope for the future.  Quiet hope, a confidence that we have a chance, that the young are not dumber than their parents or grandparents, but are generally smarter.

As president for the past three years, I’ve been reorganizing and rebuilding the MCB.  We have plans to relaunch the conferences.  We intend to rebuild our website, which contains an author database which was, when it was instituted, the first of its kind in the nation.  We intend that it be made interactive.  That’s going to be a bit pricey, but once done it will be a great tool.

There are other programs we’d like to do.

But one thing we’ve been working at for the last eight years, doggedly and consistently, is the creation of a state poet laureate.  I won’t go into the details of that effort, they would bore you.  Mostly the work consisted of letter writing, long conversations with “influential” people, planning the structure of the post, often just being a pest.  MCB itself could not do this—for it to be “official” it must come from either the governor or the legislature.  Most states, it is an appointment of the governor.  It boils down to convincing the governor to do it.

Governor Blunt has decided to do it.  Last month we received word that the position would be created and the first poet laureate will be named in mid-December.  MCB has been named the agency which will administer the post and work on selection.

Warning:  what follows is an unapologetic promotional request for financial support.

I canvassed a number of states about their poet laureate programs.  There are about 8 or 9 states that do not have the position.  Among the others, the post is largely honorary, with no funding.  From the beginning, we thought the post should have some money behind.  It is incredibly difficult to make a living as a writer, triply so as a writer of poetry.  Besides, we intend for our laureates to travel the state, speaking on the matter of the literary arts.  That shouldn’t come out of the laureate’s own pocket.  But we’ve already learned that Missouri’s laureate post will also, as far as the state government is concerned, be honorary.

So I am asking for donations.  MCB’s future programming efforts will be built around the poet laureate–not specifically so much as thematically.  Missouri is stepping up to the plate, symbolically, to declare that literature, that reading, that authors are actually important.  In order to move forward and take advantage of the very public opportunity this is giving the Culture of the Book, we want to put some teeth behind it.

You can go to our website– books.missouri.org –and read a bit more about us.  Mind you, the site as it stands is going to be changed in a year or so, but there’s still worthwhile content.  If given the chance and the support, we intend doing a job of elevating the stature of the written word in Missouri.  So if you are so inclined, please send your tax deductible donations to:

Missouri Center for the Book
600 West Main,
P.O. Box 2075
Jefferson City, MO 65102-2075,

or call 573-751-1821

Before you ask, I cleared this with Erich.  MCB is a 501c3 nonprofit organization (which receives no money from state or federal sources).

As I said, I am unapologetically, unabashedly, unashamedly asking for money.  We want to pay our poets laureate a reasonable honorarium and we want to fund programs that will do for books what PBS does for documentary film or NPR does for radio broadcasting.  Granted, on a more modest scale, but still.

The governor has decided to announce this before Christmas.  Seems like a good time to give a present to the state and to make a stab at doing better for one of the things we all love and need so much—good books.

Thank you for your time and attention.