Billy Graham, now 87, recently gave an extended interview to Newsweek reporter Jon Meacham. The interview contained a few surprises that brightened my day. First, Graham indicated that Christians need not be Bible literalists: The new interviews with NEWSWEEK, however, reveal a more intriguing figure than either his followers or his critics…
I’d like to do another riff on the science and religion thing, so bear with me. I largely don’t bother going on about this issue anymore, except in those instances where there may be an audience of undecideds.
One of the things about Americans in small groups is that by and large we will listen and we will weigh what we hear before making up our minds. It comes down to the slickness of the rhetoric or the overwhelming honesty of an argument. That’s on us, we who bother to make such arguments. It helps to remember that we do this for those who haven’t made up their minds yet.
Evolution vs Creation Science. The arguments are settled, the science is in, there’s no real dispute except on the Culture War Front. Evangelicals simply don’t like the program. When the truth destroys a cherished myth, print the myth. An old newspaper adage from the 19th Century.
We’ve been having this crap now for a couple of decades at least, in Kansas back in the 90s, and the issue is well-enough known and the stakes thoroughly understood by enough folks on both sides that anyone moving to circumvent the Supreme Court decision (Edwards vs Aguillard, 1987) is doing so with the knowledge that they are being duplicitous. They have decided that, as they cannot win their case on the basis of fact and reason, and since they believe they are right and everyone who disagrees with them is wrong, any tactic …
President Bush and Republican leaders in Washington have failed America by not stopping importation of heroin from Afghanistan which has become a “narco-state” in the aftermath of the toppling of the Taliban regime which had supported Osama bin Laden and global terror through sales of drugs. A resurgent Taliban uses drug sales as an instrument of terror and finances international terrorism. The warlords which grow and process the drugs are supported by the US in our continuing efforts to prop up the post-Taliban government of Hamid Karzi. The flow of more potent Afghan drugs into the US has caused carnage among users, some as young as 11.
In 2001, the Taliban had banned opium production in Afghanistan to increase the price of its stocks which it apparently used to supply funds to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists for their attacks upon the United States and others. Opium production in Afghanistan fell to just 74 metric tons. After the overthrow of the Taliban, opium production capacity skyrocketed to 1,278 metric tons in 2002, according to DEA statistics. Production more than doubled in 2003, and then nearly doubled again in the next year according to James Risen, in his book “State of War.” Risen also writes that “by 2004, Afghanistan was producing 87 percent of the world’s opium supply. In late 2004, the CIA estimated that 206,000 hectares were under poppy cultivation and that the new crop would generate $7 billion worth of heroin.”
Congress and the Bush administration were aware …
The human brain has a remarkable ability to categorize data. We use heuristics, or mental “rules of thumb”, to make sense of the world around is with efficiency, and usually, accuracy. That vital ability to generalize has protected us from harm since the beginning of our species, and it still aids us immensely in processing and storing information.
But the human tendency to generalize also gets us in a lot of trouble. The brain’s predisposition to throw sensory and contextual data into categories takes much of the blame for forms of human illogic such as stereotyping, prejudice, and jumping to conclusions.
Disillusioned with the failings of our logical process, we may feel tempted to shirk the instinct to generalize all together. At first blush, it sounds like a fantastic (if impossible) way to cure the world of much its ignorance and needless hate. If we could remove the part of the brain that draws quick conclusions automatically, where would that leave us as a species?
Well, it would make us autistic.
Psychologists associate autism with poor social skills, lacking communication ability, and a stubbornly structured and highly literal way of information processing. According to Harvard University Professor of Psychology Daniel Schacter in his book The Seven Sins of Memory, Autistics lack real-world critical thinking skills because they look at everything in an individualized, literal way. This explains in part why autistics tend to have astounding rote memorization, yet lack any grasp of context.
Without the ability to generalize, we …
It’s not yet football season, but I’m already hearing rumblings, and I’ve seen news bits on the the Rams cheerleaders. But since, to my mind, all professional sports is of a fabric, some worse than others, I thought I’d post this essay I wrote some time ago, with modifications.
An acquaintance asked me a while ago if I intended to watch the play-offs and I responded–automatically and immediately–with “what play-offs?”
Such honesty can get you seriously dissed in this country. But, yes, Virginia, there are people in the United States who know virtually nothing about pro sports. Or semi-pro. Or amateur. Nothing about sports.
When the Cardinals (my home team) are in the play-offs or whatever, heading for a pennant–which they do more regularly than I care to recall–I suffer at work, because suddenly none of the radios are playing music, but carrying the do-or-die commentary on the day’s Game. People move about rivetted. They have a glazed look in their eyes. I’ve seen that look in others–religious fanatics in the grip of glossolalia.
I don’t get it.
No, wait. Let me be clearer. I don’t GET IT!
Is it possible to grow up in this culture and not have an appreciation for athletics? Sure, but that’s not what I don’t get. And for the most part, I’m not sure most sports fans have such an appreciation themselves. I mean, I don’t think all those people who tuned in to watch the Team of the Month take another Super Bowl …