Papers on information & evolution

Pim van Meurs, frequent contributor to the Panda's Thumb, recently wrote about the incessant lies on the part of ID-creationists regarding (among other things) evolution and information, and he referenced some papers that I have compiled from a few posts that I've written on the topic:

1. Natural selection as the process of accumulating genetic information in adaptive evolution, M. Kimura, Genetic Research Cambridge, 2 (1961) 127-140
2. Rate of Information Acquisition by a Species subjected to Natural Selection, D.J.C. MacKay, open-source @ http://arxiv.org/ (1999)
3. Evolution of biological information, T.D. Schneider, Nucleic Acids Research, (2000), 2794-2799
4. The fitness value of information, C.T. Bergstrom and M. Lachmann, open-source @ http://arxiv.org/ (2006)
5. Review of W. Dembski’s No Free Lunch, J. Shallit, BioSystems, 66 (2002) 93-99
6. The Evolution and Understanding of Hierarchical Complexity in Biology from an Algebraic Perspective, C.L. Nehaniv and J.L. Rhodes, Artificial Life, 6 (2000) 45–67
7. On the Increase in Complexity in Evolution I, P.T. Saunders and M.W. Ho, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 63 (1976) 375-384
8. On the Increase in Complexity in Evolution II: The Relativity of Complexity and the Principle of Minimum Increase, P.T. Saunders and M.W. Ho, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 90 (1981) 515-530

In addition to these papers, I wanted to highlight six other recent reviews that give a great overview of the present scientific thinking towards the origin of the genetic code:

1. "Selection, history and chemistry: the three faces of the genetic code.", Trends in Biochemical Sciences, Volume 24, Issue 6, 1 June 1999, Pages 241-247 (full-text .pdf)
2. "Genetic code: Lucky chance or fundamental law of nature?", Physics of Life Reviews, Volume 1, Issue 3, Dec 2004, Pages 202-229 (full-text .pdf) [low-quality pub, but expansive overview of the subject]
3. "Stepwise Evolution of Nonliving to Living Chemical Systems.", Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, Volume 34, Issue 4, Aug 2004, Pages 371–389 (full-text .pdf)
4. "The Origin of Cellular Life.", Bioessays, Volume 22, Issue 12, Dec 2004, Pages 1160-1170 (full-text .pdf)
5. "The Origin of the Genetic Code: Theories and Their Relationships, A Review.", Biosystems, Volume 80, Issue 2, May 2005, Pages 175-184 (full-text .pdf)
6. "The Origin and Evolution of the Genetic Code: Statistical and Experimental Investigations.", Robin D. Knight, Ph.D. Dissertation, June 2001.

And three more about evolution and complexity:

1. Understanding the recent evolution of the human genome: insights from human-chimpanzee genome comparisons, Human Mutation, 28(2):99-130, Oct 2006, Download PDF (also see: this article)
2. The origin of new genes: Glimpses from the young and old, Nature Reviews Genetics, 4(11): 865-875 Nov 2003, Download PDF
3. Evolution of biological complexity, PNAS, 97(9):4463-4468, April 2000, Download PDF

See a few of my posts for context with these papers:

1. http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2007/05/cameron-and-comfort-hit-new-low-with.html
2. http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2007/05/something-ive-been-slow-to-realize-re.html
3. http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2007/03/broken-record-that-is-creationism.html
4. http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-origin-of-genetic-code-and.html
5. http://nonserviamergofiatlux.blogspot.com/2007/02/destroying-yet-another-creationist-myth.html
   

The Boy Scouts of Philly & discrimination

Looks like one of the more famous discrimination cases for the Boy Scouts, this one regarding the "Cradle of Liberty Council" is coming to a head...much to the dismay of the AFA and their fallacious reasoning.

Churches as businesses

Times are good for megachurches:

An analysis by The New York Times of the online public records of just over 1,300 of these giant churches shows that their business interests are as varied as basketball schools, aviation subsidiaries, investment partnerships and a limousine service.

At least 10 own and operate shopping centers, and some financially formidable congregations are adding residential developments to their holdings. In one such elaborate project, LifeBridge Christian Church, near Longmont, Colo., plans a 313-acre development of upscale homes, retail and office space, a sports arena, housing for the elderly and church buildings.

But the entrepreneurial activities of churches pose questions for their communities that do not arise with secular development.

These enterprises, whose sponsoring churches benefit from a variety of tax breaks and regulatory exemptions given to religious organizations in this country, sometimes provoke complaints from for-profit businesses with which they compete — as ChangePoint’s new sports center has in Anchorage.

Mixed-use projects, like shopping centers that also include church buildings, can make it difficult to determine what constitutes tax-exempt ministry work, which is granted exemptions from property and unemployment taxes, and what is taxable commerce.

The article in the NYT highlights another reason that churches should lose their tax exemption; not that this is any different than them acting as lobbyists or the RR bulldog groups making millions or as funnels of corruption for government $. The full-text of the NYT article is below:

New piece in the insect evolution puzzle

I wrote a piece a while back on insect evolution. Today, a new study has been reported on which shows 2.5 meter Eurypterids existed during the Devonian period. This shows that giant ancestors of modern land insects still existed in the sea long after other insects had already taken to land.

If you're a fan of invertebrates, check out the 8th edition of the Circus of the Spineless I hosted in April '06.

Public wants church-state separation

We hear a lot from the vocal minority of religious fundamentalists who decry the Constitution's mandate of church-state separation.

Do they represent the mainstream?

Absolutely not.

The overwhelming majority of persons surveyed don't want politicians in their church, nor their pastors directing them how to vote.


This trend is nothing new, either:

This seems to have held up for several years. In 2004, a poll released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 65% of Americans oppose church endorsement of political candidates, 69% think it improper for political parties to ask congregations for their membership lists and 64% oppose the idea of Catholic bishops denying communion to politicians who fail to support church teachings on abortion and related issues.

Moreover, in 2002, 75% of Americans said churches should not come out in favor of one candidate over another. In 2001, the Pew Research Center found that 65% of Americans said they did not “think it is ever right for clergy to discuss political candidates or issues from the pulpit.”

This, however, had to be the most amusing part of the poll:

On the Republican side there also has been a contest to win the backing of religious conservative leaders, including former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani’s endorsement by televangelist Pat Robertson.

But the poll said that could hurt more than help — 29 percent said Mr. Robertson’s endorsement made them less likely to support Mr. Giuliani, while only 6 percent said they now are more likely to support him. That was consistent across all such demographic categories as age, party affiliation and income.

Apparently, appearing alongside a lunatic televangelist doesn’t carry quite the same electoral punch as the Giuliani campaign had hoped.

Keep the church and state forever separate. (Ulysses S. Grant, 1875, Leo Pfeffer, Church, State, and Freedom, 1967, p. 337)

Alberto Gonzales at UF

Despite my (continued and unresolved) anger that they invited him in the first place, I'm proud of the UF student body for protesting the criminal's speech.

Also check out the Alligator's article and their video of the protests.


Go Gators!

Reading

A new study finds that student performance is directly tied to reading for pleasure. Am I surprised? Not so much...

A swath from the NYT follows:

In his preface to the new 99-page report Dana Gioia, chairman of the endowment, described the data as “simple, consistent and alarming.”

Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.

The study also examined results from reading tests administered to adults and found a similar trend: The percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined.

Three years ago “Reading at Risk,” which was based on a study by the Census Bureau in 2002, provoked a debate among academics, publishers and others, some of whom argued that the report defined reading too narrowly by focusing on fiction, poetry and drama. Others argued that there had not been as much of a decline in reading as the report suggested.

This time the endowment did not limit its analysis to so-called literary reading. It selected studies that asked questions about “reading for fun” or “time spent reading for pleasure,” saying that this could refer to a range of reading materials.

“It’s no longer reasonable to debate whether the problem exists,” said Sunil Iyengar, director of research and analysis for the endowment. “Let’s not nitpick or wrangle over to what extent is reading in decline.”

In an interview Mr. Gioia said that the statistics could not explain why reading had declined, but he pointed to several commonly accepted culprits, including the proliferation of digital diversions on the Internet and other gadgets, and the failure of schools and colleges to develop a culture of daily reading habits. In addition, Mr. Gioia said, “we live in a society where the media does not recognize, celebrate or discuss reading, literature and authors.”

In seeking to detail the consequences of a decline in reading, the study showed that reading appeared to correlate with other academic achievement. In examining the average 2005 math scores of 12th graders who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books, an analysis of federal Education Department statistics found that those students scored much lower than those who lived in homes with more than 100 books. Although some of those results could be attributed to income gaps, Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books.

The new report also looked at data from the workplace, including a survey that showed nearly three-quarters of employers who were polled rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with two-year college degrees, and nearly 90 percent of employers said so for graduates of four-year colleges. Better reading skills were also correlated with higher income.

In an analysis of Education Department statistics looking at eight weekly income brackets, the data showed that 7 percent of full-time workers who scored at levels deemed “below basic” on reading tests earned $850 to $1,149 a week, the fourth-highest income bracket, while 20 percent of workers who had scored at reading levels deemed “proficient” earned such wages.

I thought the economic information was the most surprising part of this simply due to the magnitude of such a correlation, rather than the relationship per se. I wish that I had a longer life to live, so that I could read more. Approximately 100 million adults in the US are either illiterate, functionally illiterate, or alliterate people (someone who can read but never does), according to peer-reviewed research. Only 1/2 of Americans are currently reading anything at all. Apparently, none of them are on Facebook and MySpace, because everyone on those sites list lots of books that they've read. Or do they do it to appear and feel more intelligent?

...When asked how much they enjoy reading, some Americans succumb to the temptation to give a socially desirable response. Hence, the Times Mirror data from 1994 and 1995 are probably inflated...One may find reading a chore and still do it out of a sense of obligation, a realization of its utilitarian value, or habit. Nevertheless, if it is true that people are much more likely to engage in activities they enjoy and eschew behavior from which they get little or no satisfaction, the Times Mirror Center data are grounds for concern. Approximately two fifths of adult Americans today tell pollsters they do not regard reading as a particularly enjoyable activity. More ominously, less than half of Americans aged 18–29 (47%) say they enjoy reading “a lot,” compared to 57% of persons aged 30–44, 60% of people between 45 and 64, and 63% of those 65 and older. (Source)

No great surprise to me.

Death penalty article in the NYT

A new article in the NYT covers the timely debate on the merits of the death penalty, given that the high court is going to review the method of lethal injection as to its "cruel and unusual punishment" quality. I've mentioned twice my opposition to the death penalty, and the reasoning behind it is pretty simple and sound:

1. Some innocent people are put to death, which is exactly the same thing as murder, and thus makes the state itself an instrument of the very crime to which it believes the death penalty should be applied. (Motive doesn't matter, only the consequences thereof.)
2. The deterrent effect is highly dubious. All of the claimed evidence for it comes from econometric studies, while all opposing evidence is sociological and demographic. See the bottom for references.
   

From the NYT article today:

The studies have been the subject of sharp criticism, much of it from legal scholars who say that the theories of economists do not apply to the violent world of crime and punishment. Critics of the studies say they are based on faulty premises, insufficient data and flawed methodologies.

The death penalty “is applied so rarely that the number of homicides it can plausibly have caused or deterred cannot reliably be disentangled from the large year-to-year changes in the homicide rate caused by other factors,” John J. Donohue III, a law professor at Yale with a doctorate in economics, and Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Stanford Law Review in 2005. “The existing evidence for deterrence,” they concluded, “is surprisingly fragile.”

Gary Becker, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1992 and has followed the debate, said the current empirical evidence was “certainly not decisive” because “we just don’t get enough variation to be confident we have isolated a deterrent effect.”

But, Mr. Becker added, “the evidence of a variety of types — not simply the quantitative evidence — has been enough to convince me that capital punishment does deter and is worth using for the worst sorts of offenses.”

also,

“I am definitely against the death penalty on lots of different grounds,” said Joanna M. Shepherd, a law professor at Emory with a doctorate in economics who wrote or contributed to several studies. “But I do believe that people respond to incentives.”

But not everyone agrees that potential murderers know enough or can think clearly enough to make rational calculations. And the chances of being caught, convicted, sentenced to death and executed are in any event quite remote. Only about one in 300 homicides results in an execution.

The first sentence of the second paragraph should be seized upon. An overwhelming majority of murders are not committed by people in a cool, calm, rational frame of mind. Besides, if killing murderers is effective at preventing future murders, so too would life imprisonment with no chance of parole. This latter option would actually be cheaper, not to mention more moral, as there would be no chance of killing an innocent person and any innocent parties would have ample time to file appeals and work towards showing exculpatory evidence.

One of the ways I wish our system would strengthen punishment is towards child molesters, whose "cure" rate is all but zero and who habitually go from bad to worse as they employ violence to cover up their crimes once they've been caught the first time. Think Jessi Lunsford.

As a father, I would have a hard time not wanting to execute vigilante justice on that motherfucker John Couey. I just hope I'll not ever be put in a position in which it is necessary to restrain my wrath.

References:

PRO-Abolition:

1. ...THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the American Psychological Association: Calls upon each jurisdiction in the United States that imposes capital punishment not to carry out the death penalty until the jurisdiction implements policies and procedures that can be shown through psychological and other social science research to ameliorate the deficiencies identified above.
2. "Since 1973, over 120 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. (Staff Report, House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil & Constitutional Rights, Oct. 1993, with updates from DPIC). In 2000, 8 inmates were freed from death row and exonerated; in 2001 – 2002, another 9 were freed; and in 2003, 12 were exonerated. In 2004, there were 6 exonerations." (Death Penalty Info)
3. "Consistent with previous years, the 2004 FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that the South had the highest murder rate. The South accounts for over 80% of executions. The Northeast, which has less than 1% of all executions, again had the lowest murder rate." (Death Penalty Info)
4. "According to a survey of the former and present presidents of the country's top academic criminological societies, 84% of these experts rejected the notion that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. (Radelet & Akers, 1996)" (Death Penalty Info)

1) Deterrence and the Death Penalty: The Views of the Experts
Michael L. Radelet, Ronald L. Akers
The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), Vol. 87, No. 1 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 1-16
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1143970 FULL-TEXT (.pdf)

2) Capital Punishment and Homicide: Sociological Realities and Econometric Illusions
Ted Goertzel, Ph.D. Sociology Department -- Rutgers U
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-07/capital-punishment.html FULL-TEXT: (.pdf)

3) The Changing Nature of Death Penalty Debates
Michael L. Radelet; Marian J. Borg
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 26. (2000), pp. 43-61.
http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.soc.26.1.43 FULL-TEXT: (.pdf)
excerpt -- "...Overall, the vast majority of deterrence studies have failed to support the hypothesis..."

PRO-Death Penalty:

4) Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data
Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin and Joanna M. Shepherd
American Law and Economics Review V5 N2 2003 (344-376)
http://aler.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/5/2/344 FULL-TEXT: (.pdf)

5) The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Evidence from a "Judicial Experiment"
Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Joanna M. Shepherd
Economic Inquiry 2006 44(3):512-535; doi:10.1093/ei/cbj032
http://ei.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/3/512 FULL-TEXT: (.pdf)

6) Does Capital Punishment Deter Homicide?
[A Response to (2) above]
http://libertycorner.blogspot.com/2004/10/does-capital-punishment-deter-homicide.html
excerpt -- "...Now, I must say that I don't care whether or not capital punishment deters homicide. Capital punishment is the capstone of a system of justice that used to work quite well in this country because it was certain and harsh. There must be a hierarchy of certain penalties for crime, and that hierarchy must culminate in the ultimate penalty if criminals and potential criminals are to believe that crime will be punished. When punishment is made less severe and less certain -- as it was for a long time after World War II -- crime flourishes and law-abiding citizens become less secure in their lives and property."

More on IPCC and "cosmic rays"

I mentioned a discussion I'd had with our school's physics teacher on 9/28 who felt that solar forcing/cosmic rays could be the culprit for global warming. Looks like she'll have to find something else to blame:

You're looking at a clear and undeniable inverse relationship between solar trends and warming trends. Causation of the latter by the former is thus absurd.

Given yesterday's new IPCC report (not that it will actually spur Bush to action), and this nice item I found on Fred Singer, I thought I'd put some of the good tidbits together:

From DailyKos' seesdifferent:

One enterprising student noted that the axes were different. whoops. To old Fred, whatever it showed, that was enough to throw out CO2 as the bad actor in this global warming scheme.

He said, in response to a question, that the 2500-odd scientists who wrote the IPCC report had "no evidence" that warming was due to CO2. NO EVIDENCE.

His words.

And what, pray tell, Old Fred, might be a better candidate than CO2? Well, I almost hesitate to say it; I almost believed I didn't hear it. But I did: as he said in this interview with the Ely, NV Times, Fred's candidate is ....cosmic rays.

Q: When you say global warming is natural, what is your chief culprit?

A: The sun. The sun. Definitely. The evidence we have shows an extremely strong correlation with solar activity. The (Earth's) temperature follows the solar activity and the correlation is very strong. The mechanism itself is still under some dispute, but we think in some way the sun influences cosmic rays, which in turn influences cloudiness.

Q: That doesn't even count the heat output of the sun, which changes over time, doesn't it?

A: Those are very small and are not enough to account for all the climate changes that we see. What is causing it is not just the heat of the sun, but emissions from the sun that we don't see -- except with satellites and spacecraft -- the so-called solar winds and magnetic fields.

Yes, the debunked cosmic ray theory; but Fred said he "knows about cosmic rays because that's what he did [his] doctoral thesis on." And this sad stuff outweighs, in Fred Singer's mind, the IPCC scientists and their report. You remember, those 2500 guys who are over thirty but less than eighty....?

Now, there is a chain of rationales here; cosmic rays have been linked to atmospheric particle formation which can lead to cloud formation which can lead theoretically to either more or less warming. But there is no correlation between solar activity and recent climate change. A relevant study can be found here, showing the data:

There are many interesting palaeoclimate studies that suggest that solar variability had an influence on pre-industrial climate. There are also some detection–attribution studies using global climate models that suggest there was a detectable influence of solar variability in the first half of the twentieth century and that the solar radiative forcing variations were amplified by some mechanism that is, as yet, unknown. However, these findings are not relevant to any debates about modern climate change. Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.

Further, if you would like to read some analysis of the foul smell emanating from cosmic ray "research", go here.

Very nice summary and set of links regarding solar forcing/cosmic rays. Also, seesdifferent analyzes Singer's funding from Big Oil/Coal (and his other eccentric behaviors) at the beginning of the article. The old man used to be a complete denialist about warming, whereas he has evolved now to accept warming but deny human activity as a primary cause thereof.

From 9/29:

Just yesterday, I had a surprising conversation with the physics teacher at our school, Mary Peterson, who told me that both she and her husband are "climate skeptics". I started a conversation with her, and she told me that the sorts of scientific issues she feels are unresolved involve such things as Mars warming and the decay of the magnetic field of the earth. What was amazing to me was that, although her degree and background are in mathematics and not physics, she certainly had the available faculties to look up and investigate the veracity of these objections for herself, but hadn't. I found out that she had heard this somewhere (Faux News, probably), and had simply believed her source enough not to even go check it out. Little did she know that scientists have addressed all these possible alternative explanations for years, and that they have all been found lacking in merit for various technical reasons.

I really recommend the following index and "guides" for point-by-point refutations of the common objections to man-made climate change:

• The IPCC AR4 report FAQ section (pdf)
  


• Coby Beck's How to talk to Global Warming Skeptic


• New Scientist: Climate Change: A guide for the perplexed


• RealClimate: Response to common contrarian arguments


• NERC (UK): Climate change debate summary


• UK Met Office: Climate Change Myths


• Brian Angliss A Thorough Debunking


• John Cross Skeptical Science

These are all excellent resources with scientific references that should be shared amongst all your friends and colleagues, especially those with whom you think contentious discussions on climate change could take place.

Add to my list this new piece in the BBC examining the arguments put forth by the "Top 10" contrarians: no surprise, there's no consensus among them.

New IPCC report, politics & football

But it's all a hoax!!

As early as 2020, 75 million to 250 million people in Africa will suffer water shortages, residents of Asia's megacities will be at great risk of river and coastal flooding, Europeans can expect extensive species loss, and North Americans will experience longer and hotter heat waves and greater competition for water, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says.

Keep your eye on this hot new item on Clinton supposedly having dirt on Obama.

Dammit, no SEC championship for UF, despite my prognostications else wise. Even if UT loses next week against UK and UGA loses against GT, it won't make a difference. The good news is, Tebow's Heisman talk is heating up. Also in good news, the Hokies are pounding on the 'Canes.

Science education & the Bible Belt

I just saw a local job offer that listed in the "Professional and Personal Qualifications" section:

• "A gracious, hospitable, genuinely caring, and respectful person with an appreciation for the South."

"...an appreciation of the South?" I chuckled to myself and pondered how many ways that could be construed. I work in what some consider "the buckle of the Bible Belt," and you know what I've learned in my 26 years living in the South?

That it sucks. I have started to see exactly just how much the South really sucks. We Southerners are fatter. We're poorer.


We're dumber. We have more STDs. We're a bunch of godidiots (exhibit 15). We have the highest crime rates of any region in the US. But goddamn can we make our white lightning!

Before you roll your eyes and move on, dismissing this as an uninformed diatribe, consider that I was born and raised in the heart of the Appalachian mountains in Virginia, where in just one instance in 2000, the ATF disrupted a moonshine trade at one small country store worth millions of dollars. I am railing against the culture I know best. And that is why I have such a hard time appreciating it. I do realize that socio-economic factors are all inextricable from one another and that if any of the above is the primary causation of the others, it's the $$$.

Facts are ugly, but that doesn't change a damn thing. Now, let's hone in on one of the South's deficiencies -- education. When you look at the breakdown of how schools are trending in SC, the facts are sobering:

	Schools		2007		2006		2005		2004		2003
	Excellent (%)		6.4		11.6		15.2		20.4		19.9
	Good (%)		19.6		21.8		27.4		33.9		32.3
	Average (%)		33.6		32.0		31.5		28.5		29.8
	Below Average (%)		26.2		22.3		20.0		14.6		13.8
	Unsatisfactory (%)		14.1		12.1		5.9		2.6		4.2

---

	School Districts		2007		2006		2005		2004		2003
	Excellent (%)		0		3.5		5.9		10.6		10.6
	Good (%)		8.2		4.7		32.9		43.5		30.6
	Average (%)		45.8		49		38.8		30.6		37.7
	Below Average (%)		25.9		29		17.6		14.1		11.8
	Unsatisfactory (%)		20		11		4.7		1.2		9.4

---

It's hardly news to most people that science education in the South suffers from the daily onslaught of creationist ignorance and general religious superstition. Now, PZ just mentioned how creationists were continuing to affirm that ID can be taught in science classes, and the fact that they claim SC state science standards allow this raised my eyebrow. The biology standards don't seem to give them this capability, unless they're seizing on these paltry morsels:

• B-5.5 Exemplify scientific evidence in the fields of anatomy, embryology, biochemistry, and paleontology that underlies the theory of biological evolution.
• B-5.6 Summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.

The whole "critical analysis" meme belies the weakness of intelligent design: it offers no positive evidence, only criticisms of evolution. Does it fill in the gaps in our knowledge? Not in the slightest; it simply identifies and spins them.

So, in short, I don't see how the ID-iots find reason for hope in the SC science standards.

According to an extensive national assessment report (p. 50 of report, p. 80/409 of .PDF), our national science scores are failing:


When we move to the South, we're adding extra poverty, religious superstition and pseudoscientific nonsense to the already serious problem we face nationally in science education. Intelligent Design creationism serves to further nothing but the widening gap we face in competing globally for the status of "scientific superpower". I like the way Mac Johnson, a hardcore conservative, describes ID:

So in light of the issue's new prominence and with a desire to improve the mental hygiene of others, I would just like to say that Intelligent Design is a really, really bad idea --scientifically, politically, and theologically. I say this as a dedicated conservative, who has on many occasions defended and espoused religion and religious conservatism. I also say it as a professional molecular biologist, who has worked daily (or at least week-daily) for years with biological problems to which the theory of evolution has contributed significant understanding -- and to which Intelligent Design is incapable of contributing any understanding at all.

Scientifically, attributing every aspect of biology to the arbitrary design of a divine tinkerer explains as much about biology as attributing the eruption of volcanoes to the anger of the Lava God would explain geology. A theory, by definition, makes predictions that can be tested. Intelligent Design predicts nothing, since it essentially states that every thing is the way it is because God wanted it that way.

Well said.

Some more Obama stuff

I missed last night's debate, but it doesn't look like I missed much. A lot of people have noted that the audience was unfair in trying to censor criticism of Clinton. CNN's South Carolina political ticker blog is useful for catching articles like these:

1. Choosing a president | Obama chasing Clinton in S.C., The State, Wed 11/14/07
2. Three Reasons (for Obama to feel optimistic and pessimistic about winning in SC), The State, Wed 11/14/07
3. Obama's Red State Appeal, Time Magazine, Fri 11/2/07: "At Obama events in Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia and Georgia, a good 20% of audiences routinely raise their hands when emcees ask for Republicans in the crowd. A "Republicans for Obama" website has 11 state chapters with 146 members."

Even though article #3 is dated, it jives well with what I wrote yesterday.

Deep Thoughts (with Jack Handey): Oil

Those with no plan for the future will inherit the plans laid by others.

I used to laugh when my dad told me he thought the government should impose a $1 tax on gasoline. I tried to tell him how that would slow growth to a crawl and cripple the economy for years. After reading today's Friedman column and giving it some thought, I now wonder if ol' dad didn't have it right all along.

What worries me a great deal is the relationship between oil and climate change and war.

At the risk of sounding like cursed Cassandra, I want to wax poetic about peak oil for one second. No one actually knows how much oil the world has left, because the Arab states refuse to allow independent audits of their reserves and fields. It could very well be the case that they have been plotting (for decades) to hobble the mighty US giant by making us completely dependent on their oil up to the day it runs dry. At that moment, our economy and our military would be crippled. When I think about Iran wanting to build nuclear facilities, even at the risk of war, it only reinforces this concern. It's like they know we're on the right side of Hubbert's bell curve. If this is true, friends, then we're all fucked.

But, let's say this is not the case at all, and that oil fears are unfounded. Let's say for a moment that we have 200 years of oil supply left in the ground. In fact, recent advances in shale oil technology seem to hold great promise that perhaps as much as 15 million barrels per day of our 21 million barrels per day consumed could be domestically supplied. What does this change in terms of US foreign policy? Not too much, given that we are still not capable of being "energy independent" -- i.e., able to supply all of our own oil demand.

Few people, certainly, would deny that those who control our oil supplies wield enormous influence over us. Some might argue that they are co-dependent since their economies become structured on the export/sale of this resource to us, and so in effect, that we are in a symbiotic relationship. They might say that worrying that Iran/OPEC/whomever would stop selling oil is absurd because their countries would bankrupt themselves.

People like the Heritage Foundation, in this assessment of the ties between national security and US dependence on oil, are irrational and incoherent:

Energy independence, defined as competitive local production of all the energy we need, remains a mirage. It is energy security that we need to accomplish, in which abundant and affordable energy supply is within reach of all Americans. Rec­ognizing the inherent, systemic, and long-term instability of the global oil markets is the first step in addressing the problem the U.S. is facing.

This was their grand, sweeping conclusion. They spell out the fact that by 2017, 70% of US energy needs will be imported if current trends continue, but then they say to just keep importing it. Don't solve the problem, in other words, just use more military force to try to secure the sources of those imports. Absolutely irrational...especially given that the DoD uses more oil than any other source in our country.

This came after admitting that striking Iran would be disastrous for the global supply of oil, and could push prices up to $83 pb if Iran's 15 million barrels were cut off from world supply:

The economic consequences of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities to the world energy mar­ket would likely be significant, if not disastrous. Immediately following military action, according to a Turkish assessment, uncertainty about Iran's abili­ty to sustain oil production at the current level of 4 mbd could drive oil prices above $80 per barrel.[9] If Iran retaliated and escalated by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, which would merely require plac­ing anti-ship mines in the strait,[10] the temporary loss of more that 15 million barrels of oil to the international market could drive oil prices above $83 per barrel, the historic height of the 1970s (adjusted for inflation).[11] In fact, a recent Heritage Foundation war game and economic study specu­lated that oil prices could go as high as $120/barrel for a limited time.

Guess what? We're already at $95 and this supply hasn't been cut off. Try again. Looks more like $120 is a closer guess.

Conservatives have no answers when it comes to energy policy. They want to continue the status quo. This is the most irresponsible and dangerous possible approach to our country's long-term economic stability and national security. We must develop more energy independence. Now.

Whether or not you agree with the science of climate change, you cannot deny that oil revenues are being funneled to terrorism and that we are, indirectly, buying the very weapons and supporting the very enemies we send our troops to die fighting with each $ we spend on oil. Saudi Arabia and Iran are both state sponsors of terrorism, and their entire economies have been supported by our addiction to oil. In graphical form, it looks like this:


Learn to equate a gasoline pump with a gun, and you'll start to get the picture.

The energy alternatives already exist, and so the government's role at this point is to make those alternatives viable and competitive on the world market. So long as oil-sponsored politicians run our country, nothing will change. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton know this, and have great energy plans to fix the central issue of transitioning America's oil-based economy into a green and sustainable one.

It's time to elect a responsible and bold leader as America's chief executive, not another regressive conservative who cares more about the status quo and doesn't connect our oil addiction to our wars and national insecurity.

Go progressive.

I agree with Jack Handey -- we need to elect a robot as president next, so we can recover from the Bush years by allowing the newly-elected robot President to tour the country and take bullets from enraged citizens.

Obama and stuff

I've been on board with Obama for a while now. I still haven't pledged myself unconditionally to the man as my preferred Democratic candidate for president, but I certainly prefer him now. Today's NYT column by Cohen gives Americans another reason to consider him for the job: his intrinsic ability to deal with multilateral and international affairs empathetically.

Last week, when Obama appeared on Meet the Press, I watched the whole show. I read a few critiques out there of Obama mentioning Social Security as a future "crisis" -- for example, Krugman claims that Social Security is fine and Medicare's the problem. I don't know enough about the background to stand either way, but I have two inferences that likely explain any discrepancy on Obama's part, should one exist:

1. He has made it abundantly clear that he intends to raise the cap on SSN/Medicare taxes so that those making over $100K / year pay the tax on all of their income. Raising taxes is never "exciting" and so it is necessary for Obama to exaggerate the need to do this so that rich people find themselves less hostile to the idea.
2. He is combining SS and Medicare into one label. I think this completely explains the discrepancy, given that he hasn't bothered to even utter the phrase "Medicare crisis" and instead uses "Social Security crisis." It cannot be as if he really is ignorant of the former and instead fabricated the latter. I really think this is a semantic issue that he should clarify with the next major public venue speech.
   

On MTP, Obama did try to draw a distinction between himself and InevitaBillary (wink wink) on the issue of leaving troops in Iraq to stage Iran-related missions. I think this is an important issue to keep in mind, especially given the epidemic of war-related suicide deaths and the way the public and Bush administration have ignored it entirely.

In addition, Hillary's strong "political" nature rubs me the wrong way and always has. That said, I would vote for her in a heartbeat over any single one of the GOP candidates right now. I also think that the strong anti-Hillary sentiment of rightwingers will make the presidential contest more difficult for her than it would be for him. I'd nonetheless love to see her as VP.

This week, Obama unveiled an interesting technology policy that got some major endorsements.

His energy policy and interest in investing heavily in science also impresses me. This is the last frontier in which America still leads the world (barely), and it is in hi-tech fields that jobs are still being created, albeit on a slower pace than we need. Too many Indians and Chinese are being hired to do the scientific and technology-related jobs that Americans must do to preserve our country's economy and future. He's promised:

Obama will invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, invest in low emissions coal plants, and begin transition to a new digital electricity grid. A principal focus of this fund will be devoted to ensuring that technologies that are developed in the U.S. are rapidly commercialized in the U.S. and deployed around the globe.

He is clearly a very intelligent man with a dedication to changing the face of politics and pushing forward progressive policies. (See more new progressive ads here.) Hillary is clearly a very intelligent woman who has made many promises to do the same; I just worry a bit more with her that her tenure in Washington may have tainted her judgment and scruples.

You should consider whether to donate and join the campaign to support Obama for president.

If you're a Republican who is willing to consider voting outside of party loyalty next November, consider Obama.

The logical incoherence of prayer

I'm sure everyone has heard of or seen idiot Gov. Sonny Purdue howling to Jesus for water. I'm not mad about that; he's just another stupid politician who scheduled his "rain prayer" (on government property during his own taxpayer-funded workday) on a day that it was already supposed to rain according to the weather service (though it didn't). What makes me mad is this:

Twenty-two protesters were forced to stay more than a block away, out of earshot and out of sight of the prayer service, on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. They were members of the Atlanta Freethought Society. Signs include "Hail Priest-King Perdue" or "Pray on the Church Steps, not the Capitol Steps."

Now that, friends, pisses me off. Preventing a group of freethinkers' First Amendment-given right to freedom of speech, assembly and petition is just over the frigging top. That sort of thing should bring a lawsuit against every government office from dogcatcher to the "guvnah" himself.

Rational people already understand the logical conundrums that render prayer completely incoherent:

Imagine for a moment that Sonny's wisely-planned timing had paid off and it had begun to rain at the end of the day, as was predicted a week ahead of time (when he planned the event) by the weather services. Of course, everyone there would have claimed that their prayers had moved God to act on their behalf. Ditto if it rains the next day or the next...and basically up to and including the day it finally does rain -- prayer will be credited with the rain.

What about the fact that there is already a terrible drought that has cost the state a great deal of money? And that it is only going to get worse from here? How many farmers or residents with gardens have lost a great deal of money (the former maybe even being bankrupted, the latter having to buy food they planned to grow)? Whether God did it that very day, the next day, next week, month, year...the negative consequences of failing to act ahead of time still deserve to be accounted for. And how will theists do it?

They will blame US, of course! They'll say that God is angry about abortion or gay marriage or whatever. The funniest thing is the idea that God will stop being mad if people pray about it, or after some arbitrary amount of time punishing us all.

Basically God has the perfect system: getting all the credit for "answers" and none of the blame for "failures"! Think of it this way: heads, God wins; and tails, you lose!

If God exists, and wants to do something, then God will do it, right? Why does God need your help (prayer) to do it? Is God lacking confidence? Does God need encouragement? Or is God forgetful, and you're like the helpful pager that goes off before a meeting? He's got Alzheimer's?

Perhaps all prayer is horizontal -- for our own benefit?

Perhaps people think God doesn't really give a shit about things, and they have to raise God's conscientiousness about it...? That little girl dying of leukemia will just have to suffer and die, because God doesn't f-ing care...until you pray, that is. If God doesn't care enough to actually act until asked to do so, what kind of "goodness" does God possess, anyway?

God's like a grumpy old uncle whose ties to the family are so weak that he has to be prodded to attend holiday dinners, but, importantly, still cares just enough such that he can still be prodded to do so. He won't come on his own, though...

Perhaps they think that God is democratic in nature, and that a tally of votes is necessary for God to act -- God only cares about majority popularity: argumentum ad populum, anyone?

The only answer to these questions that renders coherence to reality at all is the simplest answer, and the most likely to be true: there is no God or gods, and if there are, then they don't give a shit and your prayers are you, as a grown-up adult, talking to your invisible magic friend, just like you did when you were a little child. Every empirical study has shown the same thing -- that prayers do nothing. Don't believe me? Find one documented amputee whose limb grew back from prayer. One. Ever. Here are documented cases of the flaws in these studies I've cited, and here are some of my thoughts on those studies.

Interesting analysis

**updated 12/4/07 to include link to article**

There is an interesting analysis of atonement, morality and justice in the new AA journal. From "For God so loved the world He did what?" by Gary J. Whittenberger, Ph.D., printed in the American Atheist Magazine, October 2007 (excerpt from p.23):

From the preceding discussion we can see that the standard Christian theology in regard to the crucifixion, death, resurrection and atonement of Jesus has several core beliefs:

1. One person X should sometimes request or command another person Y to prove his love for X by killing somebody else Z whom Y loves.
2. If asked or commanded by person X, another person Y should prove his love for X by killing somebody else Z whom Y loves.
3. One person X should sometimes spontaneously kill somebody else Z he loves in order to prove his love for another person Y.
4. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should change it.
5. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by exempting some people from just punishment after they have behaved wrongly.
6. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by sometimes transferring penalties earned by one person Y to another person Z who has not earned them.
7. If a person X or group of persons has rationally developed a justice system which works perfectly well, then he or the group should subvert it by exempting some people from just punishment after they have behaved wrongly if they agree to accept irrational beliefs.
8. There exists a god X who would do or has already done those things.

All these core beliefs are irrational, unethical and/or false.

I had a long discussion on the question of how God can be both just and merciful at the same time with Todd Friel where I really emphasized #6 & 7 above. Of course he didn't get it/didn't agree. Oh well...

Nice resource on cosmology

I've been a fan of Steinhardt's for some time now, and his new book Endless Universe is now on my reading list. He's a proponent of the cyclic model of the universe, and he's in good company these days.

Check out this CBC radio program (.mp3 here) on cosmology, too, while you're at it.

This week in God

Steve Benen's weekly segment is up, and you should read the whole thing. I just wanted to point out two things:

1) I read this the other day and I'm still scratching my head. I mean, I dislike Benny "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" Hinn as much as anyone, and I think the whole lot of those six are probably as corrupt and unethical as it gets. However, I just don't understand the legal power that a Congressperson has to audit the finances of these people.

The IRS? Sure! But Congress...!?!? We'll wait and see if this goes anywhere.

Oh yeah, and worth mention is that this Sen. Grassley of Iowa is a Republican. I found that surprising, given the close ties the GOP has with the RR, especially in a state like Iowa. Bravo to him for rising above the fray of partisan pandering.

2) "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" -- a documentary about Dover comes on PBS Tuesday, November 13, 8:00 pm, details here and here.

More dead soldiers than ever, with no political progress

Don't forget: we are winning the [one] war -- on terrorism. But, just in case you do forget that, there's this place called Afghanistan where more troops have been killed this year than any year since the invasion...and there's this other place called Iraq where the same exact thing is true:

Six U.S. troops were killed by insurgents today in “the most lethal [attack] against American forces this year.” The death toll for number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan is at least 101 this year, making it the “deadliest for Americans here since the 2001 invasion.” As SusanG points out, 2007 has also been the deadliest year in Iraq.

I mean, we're winning, it's just that...a lot of our boys are getting killed doing it...and absolutely no political progress is being made...but...

Everybody agrees that military and security measures on their own can only go so far if not buttressed by economic, social and political progress.

The Americans and Iraqi government are well aware of the need to follow up with services - electricity and water supplies are still sporadic - and job-creation schemes if they are to hold the ground they are clearing.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said that next year will be the year of services and reconstruction. At this stage, Iraqis are looking for performance and delivery, not promises and fine words.

One of the main stated objectives of the US troop surge was to clear a space for the Iraqi politicians to enact nation-building legislation and pursue national reconciliation as the cornerstone of the New Iraq.

But virtually none of the key pieces of required legislation has yet been passed by a fractious Iraqi parliament which has been wracked by factional disputes.

There is still no shared and agreed vision of Iraq's future. Kurds and some Shias want a loose, federal arrangement, while Sunnis and some others want a stronger, more centralised state.

It matters. To which Iraq are people signing up with the security forces swearing allegiance?

And:

In September, the GAO review indicated that only three of the 18 benchmarks had been met, four had been partially met and eleven had not been met. In late October, the GAO reported specifically on the 8 political benchmarks pointing out that Iraq had only fully met one, to protect minority rights in parliament, and partially met another, to enact legislation on the formation of regions. The other six remain unmet.

What are our boys dying for? According to King George, it was to create a secure environment so that the following integral issues could be addressed:

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution.

How's that going? Not so well...

There really is a problem with atheism

I made a very brief comment on Oct 11th about my take on Sam Harris' controversial talk at the Atheist Alliance conference (video here). I told a friend that I agreed with Sam about dropping labels entirely, and had already done so a few months back with two small but important first steps -- removing my "religious views" from my facebook and MySpace profiles. Basically, the premise he puts forth is that the label "atheist" is now a hindrance to the causes for which we fight. I agree, despite some good arguments contrariwise.

There seem to be two general avenues for responses to Sam's case: 1) it doesn't matter what we label ourselves, as others will continue to do so, and any "new" label will ultimately be dealt the same fate as "atheist;" and, 2) it doesn't serve the interests of the group to abandon the label, as we need it for some reason X. Both of these two issues were raised in the Q&A session after Sam's talk.

Ellen Johnson writes along the lines of (1):

Blacks are still dealing with bigoted notions that they are lazy and on welfare. Jews are still dealing with claims that they are cheap or that they run the media. Italians are still having to deal with claims that they are all in the mafia, etc., etc. Yet, we don't seriously suggest that they change, or not use, their names in order to stop having to refute certain bigoted ideas. Should gays call themselves "non-heterosexuals" in order to be accepted?

This is rhetorical, of course, but these are also very weak analogies. Race/ethnicity is undeniable, visual and physical, making easy markers for partitioning people into neat little categories. Gay behaviors (not the preferences) are the same. In addition, one day, would it not be preferable to be truly "race-blind" (unlike the Colbert version) -- without labels, and to no longer need to identify oneself as either straight or gay? If someone is a great music composer, need we introduce them with, "the great black composer..." or "the amazing gay composer..."? I think we subconsciously recognize that this does happen and that it is wrong, as a person's race or sexual preference is completely irrelevant to nearly every discussion in which it occurs. Is it necessary to invoke one's own race to battle racism? One's own sexual preference to battle bigotry? Do I have to say, "As a Jew/black/gay man, it is wrong to say that about Jews/blacks/gay men..."?

Second, she misses the mark with that last comment -- Sam advocates dropping labels entirely, not switching one for another.

PZ writes along the lines of (2):

Like you, I look forward to a post-theist future when the term "atheist" is a quaint relic that lacks any contemporary context, as silly as saying that one is an a-Zeusist or an aleprechaunist. That time is not now...Those labels you denigrate...are useful rallying cries for the tiny, scattered bubbles of rationality drifting in the sea of superstition and ignorance. It's how we find each other and grow. It's how we build whole communities working for a common cause, rather than acting as isolated individuals. I'd like to see more openly secular communities and institutions forming, and I think to do that we have to accept labels and banners and symbols, and we have to be open about expressing our ideas and encouraging others to join us. That's how we'll make a lasting difference.

This pragmatic concern ignores important distinctions between things like ending slavery and gaining civil rights versus the "endgame" that secular groups have in mind. All that secular groups (responsible and ethical ones, anyway) want is to extricate religion from government and to present arguments in the public sphere that will convince extremists to abandon their violence. This is a far cry from the economic and cultural entanglements of slavery and racism, which always involved only one ethnic group and which did not affect a majority of the American public. A plethora of other distinctions can be drawn here.

Most important is that this isn't about ending some entrenched economic system or clear and flagrant inequality before the law. We have none of the same legal and moral authority that civil rights and abolitionist groups had on their side. And it was this very issue that became an argument a while back between D.J. Grothe and PZ when atheists today were contrasted to civil rights crusaders in the 60s. Ditto with gay rights groups, who are still denied marriage and have been targets of violence since time out of mind. We have to go back to the Puritans or Bruno to get that sort of comparison with atheists.

More apt is the analogy to racist attitudes; this is the problem non-believers face -- prejudice. No one group really accomplished anything worth mentioning to drastically change widespread attitudes about race. Instead, and quite like theistic conceptions of atheists, it takes years and years of access to and familiarity with former objects of derision to begin to recognize them as equals. Like Sam mentioned during the Q&A, there may be no real "strategy" to turn around public perceptions of atheism. It may be a decentralized phenomenon that occurs over a long period of time solely as the result of us (atheists) just being who we are and going about our daily business for the prejudices to start to fade.

I agree with him entirely that this won't happen as the result of some distinct and marginalized group being ever more vocal. However, I do think that this was an important "catalyst" -- if you will -- to spark the dialogs that must begin and continue indefinitely. It will happen as the result of sustained long-term social adjustment, not conferences and books (though they played an important part).

The other issue Sam spoke of is the need for atheists to be more accepting of subjective human experiences in meditation and contemplative exercises. Long story short, we need to come to recognize that a lot of what religion offers is based on something real, the human need to transcend our circumstances at times and find a sort of "center" through one of the various introspective means at our disposal. For far too long we've conceded that ground entirely to religion and cast it aside as "mysticism" -- though it need not be.

I plan to try to do more meditation and find out if it is beneficial to me or not. If so, then great; if not, I'll quit.

In the end, all this bickering about labels doesn't do a damn thing to accomplish what it is we are all hoping for: the end of extremist religion and recognition of the intellectual paucity of theistic arguments. But I do agree with Sam that the labels may hinder reaching those goals.

UN report on rights of atheists

An interesting report from Asma Jahangir details some of the legal and cultural issues that non-beleivers face. It may be useful when deciding on legislation in some already-enlightened country, but it will have little impact anywhere that it is most needed, I'm sure. Here's a nice tidbit:

In several countries, religious groups enjoy certain exemptions from equality legislation concerning employment or the provision of goods, facilities and services. This is criticized as effectively allowing religious groups to discriminate against other religions and non-religious believers. This problem may increase when public services, for example in the health or social sector, are contracted out to faith-based organizations. Atheists and non-theists are concerned that contractual clauses may not be enough to protect them and religious minorities when seeking services from or employment with public service providers when the service provision has been contracted out to faith-based organizations.

Hmmmm...why does this sound so familiar?

Rudy & the mob

From one of the first times I saw Giuliani, I swear I thought to myself, "he looks crooked, like a mobster or something." While prescience is not one of my gifts, and such shallow judgments must be brushed aside in exchange for evidence, I have to wonder, with Rudy's ever-widening Bernard Kerik scandal, if I was on to something. At any rate, Rudy scares me more than pretty much any other front-runner because of his insane foreign policy -- he'd definitely start a war with Iran. His domestic policies are modeled right after King George, as well.

You have got to be shitting me

Alberto fu%*ing Gonzales is getting paid $40K to come speak at my beloved UF?!?!?!?

Alberto Gonzales to speak at UF
By KIM WILMATH, Alligator Staff Writer
Thursday, November 8, 2007 1:38 AM EST

Alberto Gonzales, the former U.S. attorney general who resigned in August, will speak at UF on Nov. 19.

Student Government records state Gonzales was paid $40,000 for his speech at UF, which is the first college appearance since he resigned, said Steven Blank, Accent chairman. Accent, SG's speakers bureau, is sponsoring the appearance.

The speech will take place 7:15 p.m. at the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, stated a press release from Accent.

The event has been in the works for a few weeks, Blank said.

Free tickets will be available for students with Gator 1 cards on Nov. 14 and for the general public Nov. 15 at the Phillips Center and the University Box Office, the release stated.

Blank said he expects a full house.

In 2005, Accent brought another former state attorney to UF - Janet Reno.

The show was so successful that the bureau jumped at the chance to host Gonzales, Blank said.

Gonzales was appointed the first Hispanic attorney general in February 2005 and later played a role in President Bush's fight in the war on terror after Sept. 11.

Gonzales resigned in August after a controversial tenure.

Gonzales faced scrutiny over his leadership of the Department of Justice in 2006, after he dismissed nine U.S. attorneys.

The White House administration said the dismissals were solely based on performance.

Gonzales called the issue "an overblown personnel matter."

However, some officials have said that the Bush administration was trying to politicize the justice system.

Questions were raised about whether Gonzales testified truthfully about the National Security Agency's abuse of surveillance programs.

Bush denied the accusations against Gonzales.

Meanwhile, Democrats cheered his resignation.

Bush appointed Peter Keisler as acting attorney general Sept. 17.

Gonzales wasn't the only high-level official to resign during Bush's second term.

Gale Norton, Bush's former secretary of the interior, resigned in March 2006. Andrew H. Card Jr., former chief of staff, resigned the same month.

Norman Mineta, former secretary of transportation, left in June 2006.

Update on the Antony Flew situation

Richard Carrier comments on the two articles in the NYT I mentioned about Antony Flew's book & conversion:

In my opinion the book's arguments are so fallacious and cheaply composed I doubt Flew would have signed off on it in sound mind, and Oppenheimer comes to much the same conclusion. It seems Flew simply trusted Varghese and didn't even read the book being published in his name. And even if he had, he is clearly incapable now of even remembering what it said. The book's actual author turns out to be an evangelical preacher named Bob Hostetler (who has also written several books with Josh McDowell), with considerable assistance from this book's co-author, evangelical promoter and businessman Roy Abraham Varghese.

It's a sad story all around.