If there's a better word, I'll use it, by the way. I don't object to people who believe a god created the universe, per se, I object to their insistence that such blind belief be taught in schools as if valid scientific theory.
A theory in science has a predictive capacity enabling you to test and refine it.
Has anyone made predictions based on "creation theory" or "intelligent design", that can then be tested?
How many fallacies can [Intelligent Design] pack in one article?
sporadically produced odds, ends, and essaylets on any number of topics from programming to politics, paramecia to puff pastries.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
"I Never Said There Were WMDs" "Yes, you did. Here."
Rumsfeld Called Out On Lies About WMD (includes transcript)
when he spoke quite clearly about them at the time:
Secretary Rumsfeld Remarks on ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"
Speaking in Atlanta today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sharply questioned about his pre-war claims about WMD in Iraq. An audience member confronted Rumsfeld with his 2003 claim about WMD, “We know where they are.” Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. The audience member then read Rumsfeld’s quote back to him...
when he spoke quite clearly about them at the time:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, weapons of mass destruction. Key goal of the military campaign is finding those weapons of mass destruction. None have been found yet. There was a raid on the Answar Al-Islam Camp up in the north last night. A lot of people expected to find ricin there. None was found. How big of a problem is that? And is it curious to you that given how much control U.S. and coalition forces now have in the country, they haven't found any weapons of mass destruction?
SEC. RUMSFELD: If you think -- let me take that, both pieces -- the area in the south and the west and the north that coalition forces control is substantial. It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Second, the [audio glitch] facilities, there are dozens of them, it's a large geographic area.
Secretary Rumsfeld Remarks on ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"
Monday, May 01, 2006
Ex-Head of F.D.A. Faces Criminal Inquiry
Ex-Head of F.D.A. Faces Criminal Inquiry
This is the guy who sat on Plan B.
This is the guy who sat on Plan B.
Dr. Crawford resigned in September, fewer than three months after the Senate confirmed him. He said then that it was time for someone else to lead the agency.
The next month, financial disclosure forms released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that in 2004 either Dr. Crawford or his wife, Catherine, had sold shares in companies regulated by the agency when he was its deputy commissioner and acting commissioner. He has since joined a Washington lobbying firm, Policy Directions Inc.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Since you, sir, went away
It's poetry night here at Parenthetically Speaking.
There's a lovely poem by Hsu Kan called A Wife's Thoughts, of which the second stanza has been the basis for several others. (This is not uncommon in Chinese poetry, to write something "in the style of X".)
Since you, sir, went away,
My bright mirror is dim and untended.
My thoughts of you are like flowing water;
Will they ever have an end.
And the same volume of Chinese poetry I have that this is found in, has several of its homages in it as well.
For example,
Wang Jung,
In imitation of Hsu Kan
Since you, sir, went away,
My golden burner has had no incense,
For thinking of you I am like the bright candle,
At midnight vainly burning itself away.
So, I planted tongue in cheek and wrote one of my own.
Since you, sir, went away,
My computer has lost all free memory,
My thoughts of you are like the overworked application,
An hourglass turning constantly.
*bows to audience*
There's a lovely poem by Hsu Kan called A Wife's Thoughts, of which the second stanza has been the basis for several others. (This is not uncommon in Chinese poetry, to write something "in the style of X".)
Since you, sir, went away,
My bright mirror is dim and untended.
My thoughts of you are like flowing water;
Will they ever have an end.
And the same volume of Chinese poetry I have that this is found in, has several of its homages in it as well.
For example,
Wang Jung,
In imitation of Hsu Kan
Since you, sir, went away,
My golden burner has had no incense,
For thinking of you I am like the bright candle,
At midnight vainly burning itself away.
So, I planted tongue in cheek and wrote one of my own.
Since you, sir, went away,
My computer has lost all free memory,
My thoughts of you are like the overworked application,
An hourglass turning constantly.
*bows to audience*
Friday, April 21, 2006
Booksigning
I'll be signing copies of Writers of the Future v. 21, at the Borders bookstore in the Cambridge Side Galleria, on May 15, from 7pm-on. (An hour or so, is my understanding.)
For our not-so-regular readers, WotF is the fantasy/science fiction anthology containing my story, "My Daughter, the Martian".
I'll definitely be signing, possibly reading from "My Daughter, the Martian", or perhaps from an upublished work.
If you're interested, come by.
Otherwise, we're a hedge, move along.
For our not-so-regular readers, WotF is the fantasy/science fiction anthology containing my story, "My Daughter, the Martian".
I'll definitely be signing, possibly reading from "My Daughter, the Martian", or perhaps from an upublished work.
If you're interested, come by.
Otherwise, we're a hedge, move along.
Saturday, April 08, 2006
The Simplicity of Plan B
Pharyngula explains Why Wingnuts Hate Plan B
Quelle Suprise
I'm so completely not shocked that the Bush administration lies and lies and lies, I really don't know what to say.
Newsflash! Lies! More lies!
Libby Testimony shows a White House Pattern of Intelligence Leaks
Libby Prosecutor Outlines Effort At High Levels: Fitzgerald Aims to Show An Organized Plan Led To Leak of CIA Agent's Name
Oh, and I laughed reading this one.
Leak-Hating President As Leaker-In-Chief?
A president better mean what he says? This from the guy who, what, didn't mean what he said, ever? Wasn't he just quoted a couple weeks ago saying one thing but apparently just trying to lift people's spirits?
I'm not complaining. (Well, in a more general sense, of course I am! Geez! My Vitale grandfather, lo, many years ago, told me to go into public service. "People like you need to", he said, or something to that effect. People like me. Honest people, who want to make a difference. As opposed to most politicians.)
I'm just not surprised.
Newsflash! Lies! More lies!
Libby Testimony shows a White House Pattern of Intelligence Leaks
Libby Prosecutor Outlines Effort At High Levels: Fitzgerald Aims to Show An Organized Plan Led To Leak of CIA Agent's Name
Oh, and I laughed reading this one.
Leak-Hating President As Leaker-In-Chief?
A president better mean what he says? This from the guy who, what, didn't mean what he said, ever? Wasn't he just quoted a couple weeks ago saying one thing but apparently just trying to lift people's spirits?
I'm not complaining. (Well, in a more general sense, of course I am! Geez! My Vitale grandfather, lo, many years ago, told me to go into public service. "People like you need to", he said, or something to that effect. People like me. Honest people, who want to make a difference. As opposed to most politicians.)
I'm just not surprised.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Insightful Discussion on the Meaning of Gang Rape in a Patriarchy
Read it here. Be sure to read the comments, too.
One writer disagrees with Amanda's characterization of gang rape as the essential scene of patriarchy, but I think they're talking past each other. Amanda seems to be saying that gang rape epitomizes patriarchy, is patriarchy in a nutshell. I agree completely.
One writer disagrees with Amanda's characterization of gang rape as the essential scene of patriarchy, but I think they're talking past each other. Amanda seems to be saying that gang rape epitomizes patriarchy, is patriarchy in a nutshell. I agree completely.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Michael Crichton's "Why Politicized Science is Dangerous"
I just read Appendix I to Michael Crichton's "State of Fear", titled "Why Politicized Science is Dangerous", for a class of mine.
Once again, MC has managed to piss me off -- though I'm sure he doesn't do it to me personally on purpose.
I have three problems with the parallel that he's trying to draw in this essay, between the eugenics movement circa WWI/WWII and climate change:
1. I don't know much about the eugenics movement as a movement, but just reading the quotes provided in MC's text, and knowing about the time at which they were written, it's obvious that we're reading ideas steeped in the extreme laissez-faire attitude of the late 19th century/early 20th, and interconnected with the racist justifications for past and current colonialism, as well as fears about *cultural* integrity. To ignore this application of capitalist ideals and racism to some combination of biology, evolution, and genetics, overlooks the actual "politicization" that made eugenics as a movement possible.
Crichton seems to be pointing at the end result -- that people, prominent people, took to this idea of eugenics at all, publicly -- without saying anything about how it really happened.
2. He also seems to be comparing eugenics as a movement and climate change itself, and I think it's literally apples and oranges. Valid understandings (of the time) of evolution and genetics provided the basis for eugenics, but it was a social movement, a co-opting of those understandings for other purposes, that took place. I don't understand, and Crichton doesn't state, what the social movement is, or its motivations, that is allegedly co-opting our current understanding of climate change for its own purposes. The analogy of science plus social movement is incomplete.
I also fail to see the "claims of moral superiority used to justify extreme actions" he mentions.
Further, I think he's inaccurate when he says that "the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science." The only measures I can think of that he's criticizing with that statement are the eminently reasonable ones of "if humans pumping loads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is connected to shifts in climate (with the caveat that we don't fully understand the system we're affecting, we can't model it fully accurately) *stopping* some of that pumping might be wise".
3. Crichton seems to be proposing that a scientific consensus is a bad or suspect thing. The thing he points out about climate change -- that (though there's argument over "how") there's not a lot of naysayers in the scientific community -- could just as easily be applied to the imagined debate over evolution. It sounds like he's criticizing what scientists actually do -- which is build and try to prove models that satisfy the available data and, in turn, the available critics of the last model.
The response to the fact that there's little debate on a subject is not necessarily "debate is being suppressed", it can also be "there's a lot of consensus developed".
Lastly, and this is a criticism of Crichton directly, not a perceived gap in this reading or the analogy he's trying to make: he does a disservice when he implies, as I think this work does in a general sense, that any time a scientific theory is widely propagated in the general population of the world, that that's somehow automatically suspect, as if it's now a "fad" rather than a valid idea. Rational thought is not the sole province of "scientists", and, culturally, when you suggest that only scientists can talk intelligently about some concept, or are the only ones who can engage in any discourse, you help maintain the wall between "science" and the "the rest of the world". But scienter, knowledge, belongs to everybody.
Once again, MC has managed to piss me off -- though I'm sure he doesn't do it to me personally on purpose.
I have three problems with the parallel that he's trying to draw in this essay, between the eugenics movement circa WWI/WWII and climate change:
1. I don't know much about the eugenics movement as a movement, but just reading the quotes provided in MC's text, and knowing about the time at which they were written, it's obvious that we're reading ideas steeped in the extreme laissez-faire attitude of the late 19th century/early 20th, and interconnected with the racist justifications for past and current colonialism, as well as fears about *cultural* integrity. To ignore this application of capitalist ideals and racism to some combination of biology, evolution, and genetics, overlooks the actual "politicization" that made eugenics as a movement possible.
Crichton seems to be pointing at the end result -- that people, prominent people, took to this idea of eugenics at all, publicly -- without saying anything about how it really happened.
2. He also seems to be comparing eugenics as a movement and climate change itself, and I think it's literally apples and oranges. Valid understandings (of the time) of evolution and genetics provided the basis for eugenics, but it was a social movement, a co-opting of those understandings for other purposes, that took place. I don't understand, and Crichton doesn't state, what the social movement is, or its motivations, that is allegedly co-opting our current understanding of climate change for its own purposes. The analogy of science plus social movement is incomplete.
I also fail to see the "claims of moral superiority used to justify extreme actions" he mentions.
Further, I think he's inaccurate when he says that "the measures being urged have little basis in fact or science." The only measures I can think of that he's criticizing with that statement are the eminently reasonable ones of "if humans pumping loads of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is connected to shifts in climate (with the caveat that we don't fully understand the system we're affecting, we can't model it fully accurately) *stopping* some of that pumping might be wise".
3. Crichton seems to be proposing that a scientific consensus is a bad or suspect thing. The thing he points out about climate change -- that (though there's argument over "how") there's not a lot of naysayers in the scientific community -- could just as easily be applied to the imagined debate over evolution. It sounds like he's criticizing what scientists actually do -- which is build and try to prove models that satisfy the available data and, in turn, the available critics of the last model.
The response to the fact that there's little debate on a subject is not necessarily "debate is being suppressed", it can also be "there's a lot of consensus developed".
Lastly, and this is a criticism of Crichton directly, not a perceived gap in this reading or the analogy he's trying to make: he does a disservice when he implies, as I think this work does in a general sense, that any time a scientific theory is widely propagated in the general population of the world, that that's somehow automatically suspect, as if it's now a "fad" rather than a valid idea. Rational thought is not the sole province of "scientists", and, culturally, when you suggest that only scientists can talk intelligently about some concept, or are the only ones who can engage in any discourse, you help maintain the wall between "science" and the "the rest of the world". But scienter, knowledge, belongs to everybody.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Unexpected Warming in Antarctica
Winter air temperatures over Antarctica have risen by more than 2C in the last 30 years, a new study shows.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
Torture Nation
Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees
and Jim Macdonald lays some truth down on the idiots who say they "don't care" that we torture.
and Jim Macdonald lays some truth down on the idiots who say they "don't care" that we torture.
Mighty Conqueror of Straw Men!
Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches
I've decided to call Bush the Incomp-ident. Actually, he's quite good at articulating a straw man position and then rebutting it. Alas, I'd be more impressed if he rebutted the real position of someone.
A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.
"It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff."
Bush has caricatured the other side for years, trying to tilt legislative debates in his favor or score election-season points with voters.
Not long after taking office in 2001, Bush pushed for a new education testing law and began portraying skeptics as opposed to holding schools accountable.
The chief opposition, however, had nothing to do with the merits of measuring performance, but rather the cost and intrusiveness of the proposal.
I've decided to call Bush the Incomp-ident. Actually, he's quite good at articulating a straw man position and then rebutting it. Alas, I'd be more impressed if he rebutted the real position of someone.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Voting System Roundup
Short version: e-voting systems don't work and are insecure.
New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson knows it. On his completely reasonable preference for paper ballots instead, the governor writes, "[w]ith paper ballots, the fundamental principle of one person, one vote will be assured."
100,000+ Votes Were Errantly Added by Hart Machines in a Single County in Last Tuesday's Primary via Flawed, Paperless 'eSlate' Touch-Screen System! Discussing computer "glitches" during the Texas primary, notes, "[o]ne such "glitch" occurred in Texas' Tarrant County, which encompasses Fort Worth. That "glitch" resulted in some 100,000 votes being added to the result totals across the county's paperless Hart-Intercivic "eSlate" touch-screen voting system."
Tarrant County's Election Programmer sent two complaint letters to election officials and the Secretary of State, detailing irregularities.
Department of Justice vs. New York State Lawsuit
Paper ballots were found in studies to be the most reliable voting system Well, duh.
Thanks to twistedchick for the links.
New Mexico's Gov. Bill Richardson knows it. On his completely reasonable preference for paper ballots instead, the governor writes, "[w]ith paper ballots, the fundamental principle of one person, one vote will be assured."
100,000+ Votes Were Errantly Added by Hart Machines in a Single County in Last Tuesday's Primary via Flawed, Paperless 'eSlate' Touch-Screen System! Discussing computer "glitches" during the Texas primary, notes, "[o]ne such "glitch" occurred in Texas' Tarrant County, which encompasses Fort Worth. That "glitch" resulted in some 100,000 votes being added to the result totals across the county's paperless Hart-Intercivic "eSlate" touch-screen voting system."
Tarrant County's Election Programmer sent two complaint letters to election officials and the Secretary of State, detailing irregularities.
Department of Justice vs. New York State Lawsuit
On Tuesday, 3/14/06 the Department of Justice (DOJ), New York State, New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), the League of Women Voters of New York State and the individual citizens who are requesting Intervenor status will have a first opportunity to appear together in court. The hearing will take place on March 14, 2006 at 11:00 AM in the US District Court, Northern District of New York, in Albany New York.
The citizens and civic groups who have requested Intervenor statusare maintaining that the DOJ action to force New York to overhaul our voting systems before the September 2006 primary risks Election Day chaos. An effective and secure implementation requires substantial time for certification, training and installation which is not possible under the current timeframes. Also, the lawsuit could result in New York being forced into hasty purchase of voting systems which are not secure, poorly tested, and which fail to reliably and accurately record and count votes. Using untested voting systems acquired in haste is a recipe for disaster.
Paper ballots were found in studies to be the most reliable voting system Well, duh.
An October 2005 report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that current federal standards and initiatives are ineffective and are unlikely to provide solutions to voting system problems in a timely fashion.
States that rushed to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act by the Jan. 1 deadline have run into operational failures in actual elections. The faulty voting systems acquired by these states had passed federal testing and certification procedures.
Thanks to twistedchick for the links.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Republicans Destroying Government -- Again
This time, Bill Frist is threatening to dismantle the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings
Bill Frist threatens to re-structure the Intelligence Committee in order to block NSA hearings
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