Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

ACLU Follies: Kansas Board of Education gets it right

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

The Kansas Board of Education has adopted new standards for science education that will allow teachers and textbooks to finally acknowledge scientific challenges to Darwin’s theory of evolution – no religious challenges, just scientific ones. The ACLU really doesn’t want you to know that.

Like many journalists, John Hanna of the Associated Press followed the ACLU party line in reporting the story. The ACLU has manufactured a definition of Intelligent Design theory (ID) that suits its decidedly un-Civil purposes. The ACLU calls it “a pseudoscientific set of beliefs based on the notion that life on earth is so complex that it cannot be explained by the scientific theory of evolution and therefore must have been designed by a supernatural entity.”

The irony here is that this definition is a point of agreement between the ACLU and its bitter enemies, the “creation scientists”, who would like to see in ID a validation of their scientific claims. Creation scientists start from a more-or-less literal reading of the creation story in Genesis and conform their findings to that principle – a process called deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning is a requirement for religion and useful for math and philosophy, but it is the opposite of science.

“Real” science

Intelligent Design theory is not a “set of beliefs” nor is it based on any “notion” about the complexity of life. It is a valid theory arrived at independently by scores of “real” scientists at “real” universities conducting “real” research in a variety of “real” scientific disciplines. ID is the product of open-ended scientific inquiry – a process called inductive reasoning that lies at the heart of the scientific method. Commenting on the ACLU’s attack on a similar rule in nearby Dover, Delaware, Philadelphia Inquirer writer Casey Luskin (who opposes rules that require public schools to teach ID) had this to say about ID:

It is no secret that intelligent design is a fairly young scientific theory, currently supported by a minority of scientists. But it is being debated by the scientific community. In the last year, three research articles have been published in mainstream scientific journals supporting design theory. In the last five years, three high-profile academic publishers – including Cambridge University and MIT Press – have published volumes with scholarly articles both pro and con debating the scientific merits of intelligent design.

Although the ACLU is not an organization I have much respect for, I will grant that they probably are smart enough to understand the merits of ID as well the academic publishers at Cambridge and MIT. Perhaps it is their legal training that keeps them from seeing how closely their straw man definition of ID resembles an outright lie.

Another irony

Many evolutionary scientists have created their own holy book that lays out the principles to which they must conform their findings. That book, of course, is The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Such conformity is the product of deductive, not inductive, reasoning. In fact, the only real difference between evolutionists and creationists is the book upon which they pin their hopes.

When we consider how the Roman Church responded to Galileo – a scientist who produced evidence that contradicted the Church’s scientific orthodoxy, we see a precursor to the modern reply to ID. The Church lost sight of its foundation by confusing its authoritative guide to faith and practice – the Bible – with a scientific textbook. Likewise, the 21st century scientific establishment has lost sight of its foundation by confusing inductive methods with deductive ones and has reacted in a way similar to the Church – with fear and an all-out campaign to suppress the evidence.

In the end, of course, Galileo and science won out. The Church is stronger for it because it has acknowledged its error and moved away from reliance on the Bible as an authoritative source of scientific information (a claim not found anywhere in the Bible itself). Similarly, ID may win out simply because it is a more viable explanation for some phenomena. If it does, science will be stronger for it, having been forced to return to its misplaced roots in inductive reasoning and the open-ended quest for knowledge that identifies real science.

In the meantime, it is a matter to be settled by open-minded scientists, not by religious leaders and not by ACLU lawyers.

Posted in Culture, science | No Comments »

Politics: Are liberals liberal?

Monday, November 7th, 2005

America was founded upon the principles of classical liberalism. A 1994 essay on the LockeSmith Institute website, “The Rise, Decline, and Reemergence of Classical Liberalism“, provides a summary of the essentials of classical liberalism. These are:

  1. an ethical emphasis on the individual as a rights-bearer prior to the existence of any state, community, or society,
  2. the support of the right of property carried to its economic conclusion, a free-market system,
  3. the desire for a limited constitutional government to protect individuals’ rights from others and from its own expansion, and
  4. the universal (global and ahistorical) applicability of these above convictions.

Liberals then …

The expression of these essentials – with their focus on indivudual freedom and rights – can be found in the Declaration of Independence (emphasis added):

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

… and “liberals” now

But the mis-named modern “liberal” (hereafter mod-lib to distinguish from the real thing) has no use for a limited government that derives its powers “from the consent of the governed”. Indeed, the goal of the mod-lib is to grow (and control) a strong central government that imposes its will on the governed and enforces an elitist vision of a pseudo-egalitarian society.

The phony equality that is the backbone of this ideal society is best illustrated by mod-libs’ attitudes toward public schools. Mod-libs treasure public schools. They reach for greater and more centralized control of both curriculum and funding of public shools. They fight every effort to assist parents who want to get their kids out of public schools and send them to private schools. They lobby and vote for ever increasing appropriations for the grand social experiments that so often overwhelm the simple goal of educating students. (The fact that some of the appropriations find their way to one of their most reliable constituencies, the teachers’ unions, is an agreeable side effect.)

Yes, mod-libs love public schools. They do all they can for them – except send their own kids there. You will find few children of Presidents, Senators, or Congressmen in Washington public schools.

In reality, the “egalitarian” vision of the mod-libs is a two-tier society, one where the wealthy elite enjoy the blessings of freedom while the vast majority endure the curse of egalitarianism. It is no surprise that two of the wealthiest men in the Senate are prototypical mod-libs – Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry – or that the largest single contributor to mod-lib causes is billionnaire George Soros. And why not? These are men who have the money to buy themselves and their familiies out of the oppressive egalitarianism they want to impose on the rest of us.

Ironically, the genuine liberals who wrote the Declaration of Independence and helped to write the Constitution thought that the greatest danger of democracy was majority tyranny. The objective – freedom – could hardly be achieved if the majority routinely trampled the rights of minorities who could not muster the votes to preserve their own freedoms.

From Thomas Jefferson’s “yeoman farmer” who would value and defend freedom, to the restraints on power exerted by James Madison’s competing interest groups, to the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, the Framers sought structures that would restrain the raw power of the majority. Little did they guess that it would be the 20th century corruption of their own liberal principles that would impose the very tyranny they feared. How? By circumventing democracy altogether.

Hating democracy

Mod-libs hate democracy. They hate it because democracy allows Americans to directly influence the legislative bodies most accessible to them – state and local governments. These bodies are more directly controlled by voters, more likely to be comprised of “citizen-legislators”, and more reflective of their voters’ will. With Congress long the playground of what George Will refers to as the privileged “political class”, state and local governments are the only legislative institutions that empower ordinary people.

But mod-libs don’t like to share power. In the middle of the last century, they discovered that if they could control the federal judiciary, they could thwart the desires of the American people as expressed through state and local legislatures. Mod-lib judges simply invalidate the will of the people by declaring “unconstitutional” any legislative acts that run counter to the ruling elite’s vision. As long as the Supreme Court agrees with the decision, no reference to actual provisions of the Constitution is required and the people’s voice has been effectively silenced. Do you doubt that mod-libs deliberately circumvent the democratic process? Consider where their victories are won and their will imposed.

Disenfranchising America

Time and time again, the American people, speaking through their state legislatures, have tried to control abortion. Some states wish to outlaw it altogether; others would impose few or no restrictions. But the judicial onslaught begun with Roe v. Wade, which was decided with only passing reference to the Constistituion, has disenfranchised them.

Majorities in many states have tried to require their schools to mention that Darwinian evolution is not a universally accepted, monolithic fact but a fractured and flawed hypothesis. They want their students to know that evolutionary orthodoxy is constantly reviewed and its claims challenged, not only by creationists but by “real” scientists doing “real” science. But Edwards v. Aguillard stripped the American people of any right they thought they might have to insist on scientific honesty in their schools.

Citizens in several states and localities would like to acknowledge the influence of the Judeo-Christian tradition on their own legal system. This isn’t such a strange idea – the Framers of the Constitution created a form of government patterned on that of the Presbyterian church of the time. While the Code of Hammurabi, for example, is an interesting legal artifact, it is historical fact that the British and later the American legal systems were heavily influenced by the Ten Commandments. To simply note that fact does nothing to “establish” a religion (as prohibited by the Constitution). But state and local governments are seldom permitted to publicly mention this aspect of their own history.

This prohibition, of course, is the result of mod-lib judges who could find nothing in the Constitution’s establishment clause on which to hang their hats. They turned instead to a private letter from Thomas Jefferson who mentioned in passing something he called the “wall of separation between church and state”. Typically, upon finding a nicely turned phrase to undergird their personal view, such judges ignore the fact that, according to Jefferson, the “wall” existed to protect relgion from government, not the other way around.

One need only look to recent bitter battles over judicial nominees to see evidence of the mod-libs’ fierce defense of their anti-democratic strategy. Democrats can live with Republican legislative victories; mod-libs can accept the presence of conservatives in their midst. What they cannot tolerate is a crack in the legislative hegemony that has been seized by uncontrolled and unaccountable federal judges.

If mod-libs aren’t liberals, what are they?

There is another political system identified with a powerful, overbearing central government dominated by an elite minority – fascism. The ultimate irony is that both the mod-lib and the fascist subordinate the rights of the individual to the power of the state. The only difference is that the fascist forthrightly states that the state is more important than individual citizens, so the subordination of individual rights is properly done for the benefit of the state. The mod-lib claims that the state’s exercise of power is actually for the benefit of the individual, so the state is usurping and exercising the citizens’ rights for their own good! There are two obvious grounds for refuting this specious assertion:

  1. As we’ve seen, particularly in the case of public schools, the exercise of power by mod-libs is meant to benefit those who exercise it (though there may be collateral benefits for others).
  2. The state could exercise its power in opposition to the clearly expressed desires of the citizens only if the state were able to know better than the individual what would be best for him or her. Such is the arrogance of mod-libs that they actually believe this is the case.

In The Devil’s Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined a blackguard (villain) as “a man whose qualities, prepared for display like a box of berries in a market – the fine ones on top – have been opened on the wrong side. An inverted gentleman.” In like manner, we can observe that a fascist – who makes no effort to disguise his interest in power and oppression – is simply an honest mod-lib.

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Culture: NCAA Oks Stereotype of Brawling Irishmen

Tuesday, August 9th, 2005

In a statement worthy of the Supreme Court’s recent hair-splitting rulings, the NCAA announced a hare-brained policy that aims to keep member schools from “using racial/ethnic/national origin references”. Well, some references. It turns out the prohibition is even more politically correct than it sounds.

Disclosure: I earned my MA at a regional campus of the University of Illinois (one of the primary targets of the NCAA’s mascot police). I have been a fan of Fighting Illini basketball for 30 years, an interest ignited by my wife who once babysat for one of Lou Henson’s star guards of the early 80s.

Although the press release at the NCAA web site credits the Executive Committee, this masterpiece of institutional doublespeak has NCAA President Myles Brand’s fingerprints all over it. Brand, of course, will be remembered as the indecisive president of Indiana University who could summon the courage to fire Bobby Knight only when there was a student who could take the heat for him.

Brand displays an intolerant hypocrisy common among postmodern “liberals”. This peculiar breed demands tolerance but seldom exhibits it. When such creatures are unable to persuade others that their pure and righteous view is the only correct one, they simply impose their will – as far as they are able – on the poor benighted souls who cannot see the shining light of their wisdom. Such is the pride and arrogance of these closet fascists that they are utterly unable to form the thought that there might be some merit in an opposing view. These champions of tolerance willingly accommodate the grossest misbehaviors, but they cannot tolerate a difference of opinion.

According Executive Board chair Walter Harrison, “colleges and universities may adopt any mascot that they wish, as that is an institutional matter. But as a national association, we believe that mascots, nicknames or images deemed hostile or abusive in terms of race, ethnicity or national origin should not be visible at the championship events that we control.” So, unable to actually bring its members to heel in an “institutional matter” such as this, NCAA will simply strip recalcitrant schools of their identity at future NCAA championships.

(This, of course, effectively exempts football from the NCAA’s heavy handed interference because there is no NCAA football championship. Perhaps the committee is relieved that this de facto exemption may have the agreeable effect of diminishing the outrage of schools known primarily for their football programs. It hasn’t worked for Florida State University, however.)

The Executive Committee did not explain who is qualified to “deem” when references are hostile or abusive, but no explanation was really necessary. It can be safely assumed that they alone possess the wisdom and sensitivity, (not to mention the required excess of spare time) to do the job. The committee also provided no definitions for “hostile” or “abusive”, but no definition should be expected. Defining their terms would simply constrain their lofty mission. Instead, they have taken the approach of “we can’t tell you what it is, but we’ll let you know when we see it.”

This attitude is evidenced by the fact that Central Michigan University can’t use the nickname Chippewas while San Diego State University can use the name Aztecs. Perhaps the NCAA thought San Diego State named its teams after the Pontiac van/SUV by that name. Or maybe they figured all the Aztecs are dead so it doesn’t matter anyway. Who knows? At any rate, the Committee seems convinced that once we are sufficiently blinded by the pure light of their superior minds and overwhelmed by the pinpoint accuracy of their inerrant moral compasses, we’ll be content to let them do the deeming without reason or justification.

Racial/ethnic/national origin references

Even with no definitions or standards to constrain him, Brand unequivocally stated that the “the NCAA objects to institutions using racial/ethnic/national origin references”. But do they? A quick survey of schools’ web sites revealed that many NCAA member schools employ “racial/ethnic/national origin references” that received the tacit approval of the mascot police. Here is a sampling

and, of course …

A quick glance at these obvious violations reveals an enormous gap in the NCAA’s righteous indignation. The policy that masquerades as a prohibition against “mascots, nicknames or images deemed hostile or abusive in terms of race, ethnicity or national origin” is actually much less than that. “Hostility” and “abuse” directed at white, western European ethnic groups and nations seem perfectly acceptable to the luminaries in the upper reaches of the NCAA. It seems that it only applies to shielding the alleged sensibilities of the Executive Committee’s minority du jour, American Indians/Native Americans. This is a narrow focus indeed as we learn from the pass given San Diego State; the sensibilities of those descended from Mexican Indians such as the Aztecs are of no concern to the NCAA.

To be fair, however, there may be other explanations for some of these oversights. For all its wealth and overbearing power, the NCAA – especially with Brand at the helm – may not feel up to the task of taking on Notre Dame’s huge fan base. And Cleveland State is hosting a women’s basketball regional next year (after the NCAA’s feel-good sanctions become official). How would it look if the NCAA came in and told the host school that they had to cover up their cartoon Viking and kick the mascot off his unicycle?

A “model institution”

Some of us are puzzled why the NCAA, with many obvious ills tarnishing big-time intercollegiate sports, is wasting so much time and effort on what is truly a minor distraction. Indeed, the NCAA’s lack of attention to real problems could hardly be made clearer than it is in this astonishing statement:

The committee also strongly suggested that institutions follow the best practices of institutions that do not support the use of Native American mascots or imagery. Model institutions include the University of Iowa and University of Wisconsin, who have practices of not scheduling athletic competitions with schools who use Native American nicknames, imagery or mascots.

The University of Iowa, of course, sheltered basketball star Pierre Pierce – with the silent assent of the NCAA – by keeping him on the team and on scholarship after he pleaded guilty to assault causing injury, a charge that resulted from an attack on a female basketball player at the university. Coach Steve Alford’s staunch defense of Pierce led his victim to conclude that the university would protect him and there would be no point in subjecting herself to the inevitable public humiliation of testifying. Her decision to leave Iowa rather than testify allowed Pierce to plead guilty to the lesser charge and avoid standing trial for felony third degree sexual assault. He returned to a hearty welcome the following year.

Pierce’s career at this model institution finally ended when he was again arrested for sexual assault and other charges. After again defending his cherished guard, Alford was eventually forced to dismiss him from the team. Pierce now wanders around trying to find a way to play basketball while contemplating the distinct possibility that his playing days may end in the Iowa Correctional League instead of the dreamed-of NBA. I don’t know what became of his first victim; his second is awaiting the opportunity to testify at his trial

In the strange math of the NCAA, two University of Iowa athletic careers ended by a violent sexual predator add up to less than the great moral value of basing athletic scheduling decisions on opposing teams’ nicknames. I’m sure I’m not as smart as Myles Brand, so I confess I don’t quite understand how this equation honors the NCAA’s commitment to “the highest levels of integrity and sportsmanship.”

Posted in Culture, Sports | No Comments »