Thoughts of a sentimental humanist

Here is the audio of a drunken little tale I just constructed.

ridiculous audio story part 1

Reading Plan for 2010.

These things are always ambitious, always sure to be unfinished. That said, the following is my reading plan for the coming year. I usually read around 50 books, about one a week, and leave space for 15 of them to be new releases from the upcoming year or book club selections. The other 35 I have selected and list below. Reading should be both improving and entertaining, and I have attempted to select works that are both. Finally, I reserve a few spots for re-reads, and those are here was well, though undesignated (can my friends guess which they are?). Here they are, separated by kind, but in no particular order:

Literature

On Love by Stendhal
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Jacques the Fatalist by Denis Diderot
Manon Lescaut by the Abbe Prevost
Auto-da-fe by Elias Canetti
Captain Fracasse by Theophile Gautier
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Rebels by Sandor Marai
The Emperor’s Tomb by Joseph Roth
Cliffs by Olivier Adam
Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
Chateau d’Argol by Julien Gracq
The Man of Fifty by Goethe
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

Science

Life Ascending: The 10 Great inventions of evolution by Nick Lane
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the nature of Reality by Brian Greene
Summer World: a season of bounty by Bernd Heinrich
Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich

History

Histoires Grecques by Maurice Sartre
The Roman Triumph by Mary Beard
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry by Walter Pater
The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648 – 1815 by Tim Blanning
Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski

Biography

Beethoven: Biography of a Genius by George Marek
Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James Gaines
Casanova: A Study in Self-Portraiture by Stefan Zweig
The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe
The House of Wittgenstein: a family at war by Alexander Waugh

Philosophy

The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton
Beauty by Roger Scruton
Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics) by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne
Life, Sex, and Ideas: the good life without god by A. C. Grayling

I will probably do little write-ups of each book, and of course this is in addition to academic reading. Wish me luck, and stay tuned for the next post this week, the somewhat annual multi-authored blog post ‘books of the year.’

To the banana man,

Damn you, Ray Comfort.

I was set to head onto campus tomorrow to meet with former students, some friends, and perhaps, if I timed it right, get a chance to catch members of your goon squad passing out a new shiny “On the Origin of the Species,” of Charlie Darwin fame. Of course I didn’t expect the book to be the real ‘Origin’ and I was right. Missing is nearly one fifth of the book, several chapters, where the logical arguments and evidence were greatest, and it is soured with an introduction penned by the you, the banana man himself. The intro claims Darwin hated women (nope) and was a racist (taking one quote out of context and then ignoring the evidence that he was far from it, such as the times he was almost kicked off the H.M.S. Beagle for voicing disgust at slavery and the mistreatment of native populations). Of course, this has nothing to do with the theory of evolution, but these ad hominem attacks seem to go hand in hand with distortion, deletion, and just plain lying. Why be so dishonest and underhanded if you are right? (This reminds me of Ben Stein slicing video, cutting answers, remixing to get false results, and lying about the nature of his ‘documentary’ to those he interviewed (of whom he was too fearful to actually let them go to the screening) in order to peddle his stupidity to the stupid and the ignorant

Well Ray, you tricked us all again. Fearing that actual scientists and intelligent people would be waiting to debate, to engage in thought, to discuss evidence, you pushed up the date one day to avoid such a thing. What a coward. I group you and your ilk in the same category as holocaust deniers and flat-earthers. And it isn’t just some godless amoral baby-eating atheists like me that thinks this. There are plenty of Christians whom you are embarrassing with your supreme stupidity. These people, while they do not share my beliefs, share my disdain. They are able to look at evidence and show disgust at the very idea of having to lie for their faith.

Please cease. You are leading a few good people who lack the evidence and a legion of very bad people astray.

All the worst,
Richard Shea

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I hate to repost another’s blog, but this was just too good. Here is Myers:

I’d never realized what a useful tool the Bible is in infallibly resolving difficult moral problems until I read this detailed dissection of a difficult situation on Answers in Genesis.

Here’s the hypothetical situation: you know the whereabouts of a family of Jews hiding from the Nazis. A Nazi patrol comes up to you and asks where they are; you, a good God-fearing Christian, can either lie and say you don’t know (which would be bad, because, like, lying is a sin), or you could tell the truth, and the Nazis would zip off and search for and presumably execute the family. What do you do?

As a non-Bible believing amoral godless atheist, my first thought was that this is trivial: you lie your pants off. The ‘crime’ of telling a lie pales into insignificance against the crime of enabling the death of fellow human beings.

According to Bodie Hodge of AiG, though, I’m wrong. The good Christian should reject lies, Satan’s tools, in all circumstances, and should immediately ‘fess up the location of the Jews. He backs it up with Bible quotes, too.

If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first–before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?

Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life–keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway.

As Christians, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ reigns. All authority has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18), and He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33; Hebrews 8:1). Nothing can happen without His say. Even Satan could not touch Peter without Christ’s approval (Luke 22:31). Regardless, if one were to lie or not, Jesus Christ is in control of timing every person’s life and able to discern our motives. It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).

Gosh. I never thought of it that way. So…all those Christians who sheltered Jews during WWII are actually burning in hell right now for their sinful wickedness? That is so counterintuitive, it must be true!

Thanks, P.Z.

Answers in Genesis is an embarrassment to other Christians who are trying to do good.

scripti podcast alpha

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One of my earliest memories, at least the most coherent and striking, is of me sitting on a red leather couch, my grandfather next to me, the two of us eating pickled herring from a glass dish resting between us. I was probably between three and four at the time. Hence my love of herring and couches. But, was that really me?

Every cell in my body at the moment I write this is different from the cells of that young boy eating herring with his grandpa. New brain, heart, lungs, skin, and bone. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated most famously that “Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει” (Everything flows and nothing stays). This is certainly true as far as our physical bodies go, cells dying as new ones are born to replace them, but are memories physical, part of something we might term ‘soul,’ or something all together different?

Heraclitus is quoted by Plato in the Cratylus as stating we can never step into the same river twice, for the river is different, and so are we. I’m pretty sure that Heraclitus means we are temperamentally or metaphysically different here, but the concept applies to our existence at the cellular level as well. So, how do we have these memories of the distant past? My hippocampus is continually providing my brain with replacements for the cells it sloughs off. Are electrical impulses and protein combinations the complete answer, and if so, then who am I? More importantly, who are you?

Part of your personal definition must be composed of physical descriptors. Your appearance makes you visible to the eyes and your unique vocal qualities make you recognizable to the ears. But in a short amount of time, the very make-up of your physical existence will be gone, replaced by a sort of copy. But you will still be you. You will have no knowledge of your continual rebirth.

Religions and certain philosophies have given us the idea of a ‘soul’ and eternal divine nature that is not made up of physical matter. Yet even if there is a soul (and I highly doubt it exists in the dress in which it is manifested by the big monotheistic religions of our day), that does not answer the question of who you are. To disregard the physical, one then must disregard the aspects of your behavior governed by the physical, unless this behavior somehow makes an imprint on the ephemeral. Is this the case? Are you your soul and soul alone? If not, what are you when your soul remains but our physical being changes?

Other religions and philosophies turn away from the idea of an eternal aspect, putting death has the final chapter on human life. While this is certainly my own view, it does not entirely answer the question of me for me. Of course, I am perfectly fine with unanswered questions and mystery, so long as it is the type of mystery worth investigating, as opposed to the type that is supposed to keep the questioner in a state of ignorance. But sill, who am I. What is it exactly that makes me me?

And what makes you you?

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Below is a picture of the breadfruit plant, known scientifically as Artocarpus altilis.

It was this plant that led, through time, space, and media, to one of the true joys of my early teens: the leisurely viewing of a swimming flotilla of nubile, nude Polynesian girls. Thank you, HBO. I am speaking of the movie The Bounty, starring a pre-crazy Mel Gibson as Fletcher Christian and Anthony Hopkins as the infamous Captain Bligh. It would be an understatement of magnificent proportions to say that the movie scenes featuring beautiful naked young women were a welcome change for a teenage boy in a state of pubescent curiosity living before the glories of the Internet and relying upon National Geographic to answer the questions of nature.

Breadfruit is very much in the news again, having appeared most recently in a column by Daniel Stone in Newsweek as a solution to the world’s hunger crisis. Once impossible to export to areas with climates different than that of the South Pacific, breadfruit has finally been tamed by science and can be genetically altered to grow in Africa.

Let us hope that this use of the plant erases the historical miasma that clings to it. The HMS Bounty was to bring the plant to the Caribbean slaves as a source of cheap food to keep the labor force active. “Feed for Blacks” is how one member of the British admiralty praised the crop. Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers had more carnal thoughts on their mind, and so the Bounty’s crop was thrown overboard, a scene portrayed quite well in both the trilogy by Nordoff and Hall and the movie, though the botanical minutia were not on my mind upon the initial viewing.

The more lascivious moments of the expedition captured my attention, but so too did they effect the imagination of the populace of late eighteenth century England. Polynesia was looked upon as a sexual Eden, and stories quickly traveled back to Europe relating the ‘easy virtue’ of a people who would copulate in public, without any sense of shame, and of young women who would give their favors to sailors for a handful of iron nails.

The breadfruit was not only corralled to be given to slaves for food, but was sought to be extirpated from the islands, so that the natives would have to work for their food with more difficult crops and eat it ‘in the sweat of their own brows, hopefully (for the prudish) too tired for tireless fornication.

Will history be kinder to the breadfruit this time around?

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To a handful of fellow academics, undergraduates, former students, and aspiring intellectuals,

Please stop writing like Jacques Derrida. It is verbose, passé, boring, and painful. The hours I have spent reading articles that have somehow meandered into refereed journals and term papers that have flopped like a postmodern dying fish upon my desk are gone, and I shall never be able to recover them. Mumblings of ‘privileging masculine ontological concerns’ and ‘the hermeneutics of dialectic desituationism’ haunt my dreams. And don’t reply that I simply do not understand the point of the work, that this is mere post-modern ‘game-playing,’ that these little word games, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing, reveal the understanding of a relativist interpretation in which nothing in the humanities is more important than anything else. To put my reply to such insistences in a five-word word game / of my very own: bullshit!

Profundity is rarely expressed in such an inchoate manner, though there are profound ideas that must, by the quality and quantity of their erudite nature, require care in both expression and interpretation. The job of the writer in almost every instance, even the academic author who is writing to a specialized audience, is to be clear, vigorous, and intellectually challenging. Intentional obscurity regularly masks intellectual uncertainty, and often inanity. Peter Medawar, who was neither inane nor uncertain, once commented that
“a writer on structuralism …suggested that thoughts which are confused and tortuous by reason of their profundity are most appropriately expressed in prose that is deliberately unclear. What a preposterously silly idea.”

Silly indeed.
For great fun, visit: http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

for a new piece of, hmm, postmodernism at every visit. This site generates bullshit papers that are as deeply profound as the works of Derrida, as full of meaning and integrity, only more enjoyable to read.

Keywords for writing such drivel: transgress, Lacanian, semiotic, hegemony, feminist distopia, etc. etc. etc.

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While looking at much of the information on evolution, I stumbled across the work of moron extraordinaire Jonathan Wells. To say that he makes a PhD look like a worthless trinket is to say that members of the KKK slightly dislike black people. Wells is most well-known for his pseudo-scientific book “Profiles in Evolution.” While this book is risible at best, the footnotes, if followed are canards of intellectual dishonesty. Actual scientists have a somewhat more difficult row to hoe before they are allowed to air any of their ideas:

For fun, i post these ten questions Wells would like all good little sheep to ask their biology teachers, followed by specific and unflinching answers provided by the NCSE:

Intelligent design creationist Jonathan Wells has written the insidious “Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution.” These questions try to encourage students to doubt and distrust evolutionary theory.

Here are 10 brief answers to those questions. Please feel free to copy and distribute this document to teachers, students, parents, and others.

In the sections below, Wells’s questions appear in italics.

Q: ORIGIN OF LIFE. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life’s building blocks may have formed on the early Earth — when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

A: The 1953 studies by Miller and Urey were the first to show that organic molecules could be produced from very simple precursors and inputs of energy. Their experimental apparatus made it possible to investigate the formation of organic compounds under a wide range of conditions. Numerous studies have been conducted since then with various combinations of chemicals thought to have existed on early Earth. Nearly all of these studies have produced some of the building blocks of life. Origin-of-life remains a vigorous area of research. Evolutionary theory can work with just about any model of the origin of life on Earth. Therefore, how life originated is not strictly a question about evolution.

Q: DARWIN’S TREE OF LIFE. Why don’t textbooks discuss the “Cambrian explosion,” in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor — thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?

A: Wells is wrong: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals all are post-Cambrian — aren’t these “major groups”? We would recognize very few of the Cambrian organisms as “modern”; they are in fact at the roots of the tree of life, showing the earliest appearances of some key features of groups of animals — but not all features and not all groups. Researchers are linking these Cambrian groups using not only fossils but also data from developmental biology.

Q: HOMOLOGY. Why do textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry, then claim that it is evidence for common ancestry — a circular argument masquerading as scientific evidence?

A: The same anatomical structure (such as a leg or an antenna) in two species may be similar because it was inherited from a common ancestor (homology) or because of similar adaptive pressure (convergence). Homology of structures across species is not assumed, but tested by the repeated comparison of numerous features that do or do not sort into successive clusters. Homology is used to test hypotheses of degrees of relatedness. Homology is not “evidence” for common ancestry: common ancestry is inferred based on many sources of information, and reinforced by the patterns of similarity and dissimilarity of anatomical structures.

Q: VERTEBRATE EMBRYOS. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry — even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?

A: Twentieth-century and current embryological research confirms that early stages (if not the earliest) of vertebrate embryos are more similar than later ones; the more recently two species shared a common ancestor, the more similar their embryological development. Thus cows and rabbits — mammals — are more similar in their embryological development than either is to alligators. Cows and antelopes are more similar in their embryology than either is to rabbits, and so on. The union of evolution and developmental biology — “evo-devo” — is one of the most rapidly growing biological fields. “Faked” drawings are not relied upon: there has been plenty of research in developmental biology since Haeckel — and in fact, hardly any textbooks feature Haeckel’s drawings, as claimed.

Q: ARCHAEOPTERYX. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds — even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?

A: The notion of a “missing link” is an out-of-date misconception about how evolution works. Archaeopteryx (and other feathered fossils) shows how a branch of reptiles gradually acquired both the unique anatomy and flying adaptations found in all modern birds. It is a transitional fossil in that it shows both reptile ancestry and bird specializations. Wells’s claim that “supposed ancestors” are younger than Archaeopteryx is false. These fossils are not ancestors but relatives of Archaeopteryx and, as everyone knows, your uncle can be younger than you!

Q: PEPPERED MOTHS. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection — when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don’t normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?

A: These pictures are illustrations used to demonstrate a point — the advantage of protective coloration to reduce the danger of predation. The pictures are not the scientific evidence used to prove the point in the first place. Compare this illustration to the well-known re-enactments of the Battle of Gettysburg. Does the fact that these re-enactments are staged prove that the battle never happened? The peppered moth photos are the same sort of illustration, not scientific evidence for natural selection.

Q: DARWIN’S FINCHES. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection — even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?

A: Textbooks present the finch data to illustrate natural selection: that populations change their physical features in response to changes in the environment. The finch studies carefully — exquisitely — documented how the physical features of an organism can affect its success in reproduction and survival, and that such changes can take place more quickly than was realized. That new species did not arise within the duration of the study hardly challenges evolution!

Q: MUTANT FRUIT FLIES. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution — even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?

A: In the very few textbooks that discuss four-winged fruit flies, they are used as an illustration of how genes can reprogram parts of the body to produce novel structures, thus indeed providing “raw material” for evolution. This type of mutation produces new structures that become available for further experimentation and potential new uses. Even if not every mutation leads to a new evolutionary pathway, the flies are a vivid example of one way mutation can provide variation for natural selection to work on.

Q: HUMAN ORIGINS. Why are artists’ drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident — when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?

A: Drawings of humans and our ancestors illustrate the general outline of human ancestry, about which there is considerable agreement, even if new discoveries continually add to the complexity of the account. The notion that such drawings are used to “justify materialistic claims” is ludicrous and not borne out by an examination of textbook treatments of human evolution.

Q: EVOLUTION A FACT? Why are we told that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a scientific fact — even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?

A: What does Wells mean by “Darwin’s theory of evolution”? In the last century, some of what Darwin originally proposed has been augmented by more modern scientific understanding of inheritance (genetics), development, and other processes that affect evolution. What remains unchanged is that similarities and differences among living things on Earth over time and space display a pattern that is best explained by evolutionary theory. Wells’s “10 Questions” fails to demonstrate a pattern of evolutionary biologists’ “misrepresentations of the facts.”

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Recently, I was involved in an electronic chat with an old acquaintance. The subject of the chat was my rather strong (and at times, especially with regard to another gentleman I will refer to as Larry from Las Vegas, childish) reaction to a particular sentiment expressed by my acquaintance. I will not repeat the conversation verbatim, nor will I repeat the exact phrasing that raised my hackles. I will candidly admit that, given my slight anger, it was not my finest hour. In short, the current president was called a form of Nazi, based on what some view as a socialist agenda.

My objection has nothing to due with any form of socialism or tinge of socialism associated with any of the programs put forth by either this administration or any other. I feel that would be a good argument, as would a debate on the current structure of government, the private sector, the courts, etc. What bothered me was the term referring to Nazism. In light of the murder of Dr. Tiller in Kansas a few weeks ago and the shooting and murder today at the Holocaust museum in NYC, there has been both a rise in violence and a rise in invective.
In short, words matter.
Before I post my thoughts, I would like to hear yours. Fire away, but be respectful and, if you have something to say, back it up.

A few of “Richard’s ingredients for a good life” in no particular order and with scant explanations:

Coffee. Fresh, hot, with cream and a little sugar. To be consumed either in my leather chair in the morning, my princess on the floor playing with Lego blocks and my wife rocking in her chair, or at my DBC, doing a little research as the anticipation of heading home builds within me.

Anticipation: It is the moment before the action that is most exquisite. The half-second before lips touch in a kiss, the soccer ball on its course before entering goal, the sliver of light as the front door of a loved one, a friend or family member whom you have not seen in ages, opens to you. When you smell the wine and it is traveling from glass to tongue, when you turn to the last page of the book, awaiting the starting and satisfying dénouement, these are the moments of joy. They are joyful because they offer unlimited promise mixed with fleeting uncertainty, and therefore are illusory.

Books. Of course.

Family. My favorite line from any movie comes from the Godfather. Having promised to provide justice to a client, Don Corleone gives the following advice, words that have become a creed for me: “Do you spend time with your family? Good, because a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Music. Beethoven for the heart, Bach for the mind, Vivaldi for sunny days and Chopin for rain.

Art. From Ketelhut to Renoir, music for the eyes.

To be continued…