Funding ignorance

At Common Dreams, Bill McKibben offers this staggering statistic:

The Chamber of Commerce spent more money on the 2010 elections than the Republican and Democratic National Committees combined, and 94% of those dollars went to climate-change deniers. That helps explain why the House voted last year to say that global warming isn’t real.

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The unsung third verse of America the Beautiful

Paul Krugman notes that "America the Beautiful" contains a third verse:

The lyrics were written in 1894 by the Massachusetts poet Katharine Lee Bates, an ardent feminist and lesbian who was deeply disillusioned by the greed and excess of the Gilded Age. Her original third verse was an expression of that anger:
America! America! God shed his grace on thee Till selfish gain no longer stain The banner of the free!

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E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything

The November 2011 edition of The Atlantic presents E. O. Wilson's "Theory of Everything." Wilson's theory takes into account the "eusocial" status of human animals, something that we share with ants and bees, but very few other species. Eusocial animals build complex societies wherein "individuals specialize in various activities and sometimes act altruistically." Wilson has taken the position that eusociality is not the result of close genetic similarity (the explanation offered by "kin selection"). Rather, he is a strong advocate of "group selection." By the way, E. O. Wilson is no relation to another Wilson who has strongly advocated group selection, David Sloan Wilson (and see here). Here's how E. O. Wilson presents group selection, according to a passage from The Atlantic:

In his new book, Wilson posits that two rival forces drive human behavior: group selection and what he calls “individual selection”—competition at the level of the individual to pass along one’s genes—with both operating simultaneously. “Group selection,” he said, “brings about virtue, and—this is an oversimplification, but—individual selection, which is competing with it, creates sin. That, in a nutshell, is an explanation of the human condition. “Our quarrelsomeness, our intense concentration on groups and on rivalries, down to the last junior-soccer-league game, the whole thing falls into place, in my opinion. Theories of kin selection didn’t do the job at all, but now I think we are close to making sense out of what human beings do and why they can’t settle down.” By settling down, Wilson said, he meant establishing a lasting peace with each other and learning to live in a sustainable balance with the environment. If Wilson’s new paradigm holds up—“and it will,” he insisted in an e-mail exchange several weeks after visiting Gorongosa—its impact on the social sciences could be as great as its importance for biology, advancing human self-understanding in ways typically associated with the great philosophers he criticized. “Within groups, the selfish are more likely to succeed,” Wilson told me in a telephone conversation. “But in competition between groups, groups of altruists are more likely to succeed. In addition, it is clear that groups of humans proselytize other groups and accept them as allies, and that that tendency is much favored by group selection.” Taking in newcomers and forming alliances had become a fundamental human trait, he added, because “it is a good way to win.”
This article is a wide ranging work that offers much insight into Wilson's history and accomplishments, and more. For instance, Wilson, an early outspoken advocate of sociobiology, takes some shots at Stephen J. Gould, who he calls a "charlatan." Several decades ago, it was the now-deceased Gould who led the attack against Wilson regarding sociobiology. This is an excellent read, and I highly recommend it.

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Matt Taibbi on Iowa

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi doesn't see real democracy unfolding in Iowa:

In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race. Let’s put it this way. What feels more like a real news story – Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar for the ten millionth time, or this sizzling item that just hit the wires by way of the Montana Supreme Court.
Taibbi points to an astonishing statistic brought to the public attention by Dylan Ratigan: "94% of the time the candidate who raises the most money wins. That's not a democracy. That's an auction."

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In a double-blind test, a classic Stradivarius violin doesn’t stand out

Clever experimenters challenged violinists to use their ears only to pick out the best sounding violins. The classic old million-dollar violins did not impress the musicians; many of them preferred brand new high quality violins and disparaged the million-dollar instruments.

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