Stop and think about sex offender registries.

In a political climate drenched with debate as well as petty fighting, many people embrace bipartisan cooperation when it makes one of its rare appearances. A no-brainer of a bill feels like a relief, and it indicates that Congress actually has the ability to conduct business in a productive way. The uncontested passage of a bill feels particularly sweet when the bill deals with an emotionally gratifying issue, like the recent creation of a national sex offender registry.

No one urged President Bush to veto this bill. Named for the America’s Most Wanted host’s kidnapped son, Adam Walsh, this bill had all the trappings of legislative gem: widespread bipartisan support, quick, painless passage, and the emotional pull that only arresting child molesters for 25 years can elicit.

The law establishes a national-level database of past sex offenders’ names and locations. Many states have implemented databases of this kind before, but this law penalizes past offenders more harshly for not providing current information, and increases criminal penalties for child predators as well. It certainly sounds like a Congressional slam-dunk, providing all Americans with more access to information, and better protecting the nation’s children from proven sex criminals. Most people would support such a piece of legislation without a moment’s thought.

But any issue that prompts you to think with your heart rather than your head can have disastrous results. Botched legislation has enjoyed widespread gut-reaction support before, after all. And sex offender registries have not had a shining history.…

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Are you a rebel? What is your birth order?

Here’s an interesting example on how intuition can go awry.  What would you guess to be the primary factor for determining whether a scientist is receptive to new and innovative scientific theories?  Education? Economic resources? Gender? None of the above! 

In Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives (1996), a meticulously researched book that has now withstood a decade of criticism, Frank Sulloway concluded that those people who tend to cling to old paradigms, who are not confortable with new innovative scientific theories, have something surprising in common.  They tend to be firstborns. Sulloway based his conclusions on the analysis of the written positions of 3,890 persons, writers who have commented over the past several hundred years on controversial new scientific theories.

Firstborns are significantly more likely to “identify more closely with parents and authority,” and more “conforming, conventional and defensive—attributes that are all negative features of openness to experience.” [pp. 21-22.] 

Sulloway analyzed the attitudes of the writers of published commentary regarding the theory of Copernicus during the early stages of that controversy:

[I]ndividual laterborns were 5.4 times more likely than individual firstborns to support Copernicus’s claim that the earth revolves around the sun.  Copernicus himself was the youngest of four children.

[p. 38] There are many books written for a lay audience on the topic of birth order, but very few of them are carefully documented with statistical analyses.  Sulloway’s book is a shining exception to the rule.  It is a highly detailed work …

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Candidates around the US leave voters “ignorant.”

The Founding Fathers of the United States feared the effects of a largely uninformed populous. In the 1700s, Democracy still struck many people as a dangerous proposition, reliant on the education and devotion of the masses. With an unaware voting public, the logic went, Republic could turn to tyranny. We cannot idly expect the government to afford us our basic rights; we instead must always fight to retain them. Thomas Jefferson said it succinctly: “If the nation expects to be ignorant and free…it expects what never was and never will be.” Fellow Virginian James Madison explained it this way:

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or perhaps both. A people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

How ironic that Virginia voters have some of the worst access to candidates’ positions of any state in the nation.  Public ignorance doesn’t get the blame this time, though. The majority of Virginian candidates up for election this November have neglected to fill out the nation’s foremost position survey, Project Votesmart’s National Political Awareness Test (NPAT).

Project Votesmart launched nationally in 1992. The nonpartisan organization, created by the diverse likes of George McGovern, John McCain, Bill Frist, Michael Dukakis, and Jimmy Carter, aims to create the most comprehensive database of information on candidates bidding for office. Project Votesmart’s website features background information and incumbents’ voting records, vast …

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White House caught telling lies about stem cells

As reported by Think Progress, Karl Rove –"told the Denver Post that 'recent studies' show researchers 'have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.'"  This provoked the people at Think Progress to do some digging.  Here's what they found: The Chicago Tribune contacted a dozen…

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A sampling of Bertrand Russell quotes

Yesterday I wrote a post describing how I discovered Bertrand Russell while I was an intellectually frustrated and isolated teen-aged boy.  Back then, I was startled to see someone else who was publicly critical of religious institutions.  Thinking about those days yesterday provoked me to scour the Internet today for some of Russell’s well-known quotes.  There are many more Russell quotes out there than these; he was a prolific writer.

Russell, best known for being a mathematician and logician, dismayed many people while he was alive. After all, he didn’t believe in God. He spoke openly of sexual pleasure being a good thing; he protested against the Vietnam war.  Now, however, many of his writings seem only like common sense.

I admired Russell’s clean writing style, his sense of wit, his astute observations and his good heart. 

  • It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
  • “The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”
  • The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
  • One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
  • The most
…
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