The “Tea Party” movement is a force to be reckoned with for the time being. They also seem to have an ideologically diverse cast of champions, from reactionaries like Palin and Beck to the allegedly libertarian Rand Paul (who is actually running for public office, unlike the other two). While the Tea Party on the whole seems to be socially conservative, there are definitely libertarian elements in it, and the movement seems obsessed with the word “liberty.” I wonder if this will play out in debates over policy issues like gay rights, gambling, and especially the imminent vote on CA Proposition 19 (Marijuana Legalization). Is anyone aware of anti-drug-war sentiment within the ranks of the Tea Party? Could they be mobilized to promote “liberty?”
22 July 2010
30 April 2010
diluting the backlash?
Things still don’t look great for the Democrats in this year’s mid-term elections, but recent events have improved their prospects. Consider:
- Evidence suggests that the party in power gets held responsible for the state of the economy. If we continue to get kind the positive economic news that we have been having recently, the economy will be an asset for the Democrats, rather than the liability it had seemed it would be.
- The GOP just spent several days in the news blocking debate on financial sector regulation. Meanwhile, the SEC sues Goldman for a a business deal that seems pretty fishy to the American public.
- People still remember the rallying cry, “Drill, baby, drill.” Now they’re seeing the tragic consequences of an accident on an oil drilling platform.
- The new Arizona immigration law is not going to help the party with Hispanics.
- Charlie Crist has left the GOP and turned the Florida election into a referendum on the Tea Party’s influence on the GOP. Internal divisions don’t seem like the path to victory. (Remember the 2009 election for New York’s 23rd Congressional District?)
Should Democrats be optmistic?
6 April 2010
proof
I just read a pretty dull article about a conflict involving atheists at a City Commission meeting in Florida. I was amused by the caption for one of the pictures, which began: “Atheists of Florida Lakeland Chapter member EllenBeth Wachs proves her patriotism by holding up an American flag…”
Is that all it takes?
2 April 2010
R.I.P. Flash?
Back in February, there were lots of posts about Steve Jobs’ dismissal of Flash as “old technology.” The about-to-be-released iPad does not support Flash. Now, everyone is scrambling to accommodate the iPad by making their websites friendly to browsers lacking Flash.
It’s like a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” without the prophecy.
21 February 2010
science is soooo hard
The BBC reports that the guy in the coma who was “communicating” through facilitated communication, was not actually communicating. I am not at all surprised by this conclusion, since facilitated communication is basically using a vegetative patient as a Ouija board, but I was interested in the doctor who changed his mind, Dr. Steven Laureys. While I applaud him for being persuaded by the evidence, he reportedly said, “to prove that it is not true is actually very difficult.”
Very difficult? The show-the-patient-images-that-the-facilitator-can’t-see method is about as simple as science gets. It was even part of a Law & Order episode.
15 February 2010
no boys allowed
A BBC News article discusses the ongoing controversies about gender verification in sports. What should the criteria be for someone to compete in an athletic event as a woman? There’s no way to answer that without first addressing the underlying question, why do we have women’s sports? (Is it the same reason we have the Paralympics? The Special Olympics?)
guys and feminists
This is a response to a blog post by a friend-of-a-friend complaining about the usage of the word “guys” to refer to a group of both males and females.
For most people, the word “guys” can be gender neutral. In some contexts, it means “males,” but in others it just means “people.” The word has more than one meaning. It’s that simple.
Is it sexist that “guys” can be gender neutral, but “gals” can’t? My instinct is to say, “Oh, that makes sense. It’s just like Latin.” Some people would say the dual meaning devalues women. I could easy argue the opposite. This linguistic situation is anti-male — the masculine word “guys” is devalued because it can apply to anyone, while the feminine word “gals” is more special because it can only apply to women.
Consider the usage of word “black.” Is it racist? You could argue it implies that blacks are desirable whereas Native Americans are undesirable, because in finance it is good to be “in the black” and bad to be “in the red.” Problem: this analysis doesn’t match up with the racism that we are concerned about in the real world. So we can come up with a different analysis — “white” sometimes represents purity; “black” sometimes represents villainy. Ah, that makes sense. Now we can say that using the word “black” to describe a group of people is derogatory.
What we wind up with is a tautological process. Language is complex enough that we can find any pattern we want in it, so we pick out the one that matches reality and claim that we have discovered something real. (This is the linguistic equivalent of the phenomenon I discuss in this post.) There is plenty of actual sexism and racism in the world. Wouldn’t it be more productive to spend our energies on real problems than on semantic bogeymen (oops, I mean bogeypeople)?
28 January 2010
Can a creationist be a good doctor?
I just read an article in The Guardian, Academics fight rise of creationism at universities, that discussed British students, particularly medical students, who reject evolution. “A 21-year-old medical student and member of the Islamic Society… did not feel that a belief in evolution was necessary to study medicine.” This is an interesting question: does a belief in creationism make one less suited to being a doctor? I have thinking about this recently because I have a student who wants to be a doctor and is a creationist.
Some might argue that creationists tend to be less intelligent, and less intelligent people make worse doctors. This kind of gross generalization is not helpful and is not specific to medicine. Is there something about medicine that makes creationists ill-suited to the field, as opposed to accounting, or engineering? While pre-med and medical students must study biology, and biology includes evolution, does evolution actually have anything to do with the practice of medicine? For certain specialties (e.g., epidemiology) it seems that an appreciation of evolution would be very important, but for most doctors the practice of medicine does not involve evolution. The ER doctor, the dermatologist, the OB-GYN, the neurosurgeon — do they need to endorse Darwin to do their job well?
Yes. A creationist doctor is a worse doctor. The rejection of evolution means that the student, in questions about science, puts more weight on unsubstantiated claims (dogma) and intuition (faith) than scientific evidence. The essence of practicing medicine is helping patients make decisions about treatment and making those treatments when the patient cannot. Which medication should the patient take? Which surgery is more appropriate? Is another round of chemotherapy appropriate? These can be difficult questions, and the best guides in making them are scientific studies. If a doctor is to provide the best care to her patients, she must make scientific evidence the cornerstone of the decision-making process. Would you really trust someone to draw a sensible conclusion from an article in the New England Journal of Medicine if she can’t draw a sensible conclusion from mountains and mountains of evidence in support of evolution?
In summary: A good doctor makes decisions based on scientific evidence, but a creationist has demonstrated a cognitive deficiency with regards to scientific evidence.
Related question: Does failing Organic Chemistry mean one is less suited to being a doctor?
27 January 2010
human numbers
With all of my training in math, I am prone to thinking about the world in terms of numbers. This often leads me to be affected differently by news of tragedies. For example, when my mom was telling me about the family that was killed near San Diego as a result of their Lexus’s stuck accelerator pedal, I was not nearly as affected as she. I think there were two things about the story that made it particularly disturbing for her — the novelty (humans are always more interested in the unexpected), and the personal relevance (she must have been thinking, I drive a Lexus near San Diego — that could have been me). I, on the other hand, couldn’t help but think, “four isn’t that many people.” I read enough about large-scale tragedies in the world that this particular tragedy, while indeed deserving of that label, seemed small potatoes.
While there is something cold about this way of seeing a tragedy, it is also a worthwhile perspective to take when we think about public policy decisions. Is it better if the state spends $1 million in a way that saves 10,000 lives or in a way that saves 10? I’m not saying that the numbers dictate the right choice, but they are certainly worth thinking about. This is the line of reasoning taken in a column titled Prioritising life by the journalist Bob Ellis. I highly recommend reading it.
25 January 2010
the deserving Haitians
I’ve been pondering Pat Robertson’s claim that the recent earthquake in Haiti is a result of the Haitians having long ago made a pact with the devil. Today I decided that this is not at all a surprising conclusion. Consider the predicament faced by someone who believes in an omnipotent and benevolent god. How can the believer make sense of such a tragedy? There are three options, as I see it:
1) God (or at least an omnipotent and benevolent god) does not exist.
2) While the earthquake may seem horrible, it is actually a benevolent act. As mere mortals, we are incapable of understanding how it is benevolent, but it is.
3) The Haitians deserved this punishment. Though God is benevolent, He is also just, and sometimes justice takes precedence over benevolence.
While Option 1 (atheism) is reasonable, I don’t expect Pat Robertson to announce that he no longer believes in God.
Option 2 (incomprehensibility) has two problems. First, the scale of this disaster obviously makes it particularly hard to sell as a benevolent act. Second, this resolution requires acknowledging that we cannot understand His will, which undercuts the credibility of someone whose life mission seems to be imposing his own understanding of God’s will on everyone else.
This leaves Option 3 (blame the vicitim). While this has some problems (like the fact that none of the Haitians who supposedly made this pact with the dark lord are still alive to suffer for it), it no longer seems like a strange conclusion for a Christian to come to.
(I suppose there could be other options similar to Option 3, in which a motivation other than justice out-weighs benevolence.)