A man and his goose

March 12, 2019 • 3:00 pm

Reader Luana, who is from Brazil, sent me a video of a tame, bonded goose that her mother found. The goose and its staff are also from Brazil. The video is narrated in Portuguese, but I asked Luana to give me a brief translation, which follows.

The most amazing thing to me is that the goose flies right alongside when the staff rides his motorcycle, and knows when to land.

Luana’s translated description:

Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina.  10kg goose.  Albino is the name of the owner.

“How did you train him to follow the bike?”

“He just did it, I just called him ‘VemVem'”. (That is the goose’s name; it means “ComeCome”).

He only goes into the water when the guy washes his hands.  The goose likes bread and water, and is always standing by his owner.  Everybody knows VemVem in the town.  VemVem thinks he is a person.  Have you ever seem a goose entering a bank and staying in line?  He even prays at the end of the day!

Actors and other rich folks charged in scheme to defraud colleges by faking test scores and school accomplishments

March 12, 2019 • 12:00 pm

Bedridden as I am, and unable to brain, all I can do is pass the news onto you (see CNN here and here and the New York Times for the details).   But I do know the two most well known people among those just charged and arrested, since I used to watch television in the days when they were famous.

These are the two actors Felicity Huffman, who was in “Desperate Housewives” and Lori Lauglin, from “Full House”. They joined 31 other rich folk, including executives and magnates of all stripes in faking SAT scores and athletic records of student applicants for positions in prestigious colleges. Others charged were school administrators and coaches who were bribed to create the faked records. The cheating parents, whose kids were unaware of the scheme, paid about $400,000 to $600,000 in fees and bribes, but one hapless parent paid $6 million! Both Huffman and Loughlin were charged with  felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and “honest services mail fraud”, both felonies.

The pdf of the indictment is here, and given the breadth of the case, the Justice Department itself has released a chart with the names and crimes of those charged. I don’t recognize any of the other names, but the ringleaders face other and more serious charges, including obstruction of justice, racketeering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

As the New York Times reports:

The case unveiled Tuesday was stunning in its breadth and audacity. It was the Justice Department’s largest ever education prosecution, a sprawling investigation that involved 200 agents nationwide and resulted in the arrests of 50 people in six states.

The charges also underscored how important college has become as a primary determinate of prosperity and success in America, at the same time that admissions have become more competitive and cutthroat. The authorities say the parents of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most privileged students bribed and cheated to secure spots for their children at top universities, not only cheating the system, but potentially cheating other hard-working students out of a chance at a college education.

“The parents are the prime movers of this fraud,” Andrew E. Lelling, the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said Tuesday during a news conference. Mr. Lelling said that those parents used their wealth to create a separate and unfair admissions process for their children.

But, Mr. Lelling said, “there will not be a separate criminal justice system” for them.

The other details are available at the site, and it looks grim given that there are incriminating phone recordings, including from both actors.

Tuesday: Hili dialogue (and Leon monologue)

March 12, 2019 • 6:45 am

Professor Ceiling Cat is home in bed with a bad cold today, so posting will almost certainly be limited to just this Hili Dialogue (I had to drag myself out of bed to do this). As always, I do my best.

It’s Tuesday, the cruelest day, and March 12, 2019. It’s National Milky Way Day (my favorite American candy bar); how much did they pay to get their own day? And at sunrise begins the Aztec New Year, celebrated in parts of Mexico.

Finally, Google has a Doodle celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web. As CNN notes, it was invented at CERN in Geneva by Tim Berners-Lee:

The computer scientist submitted his first proposal for an “information management system” on 12 March 1989 — plans that his boss called “vague but exciting.”
Say what you will about it, it’s still been a fantastic advance in disseminating information about and pictures of cats. The Doodle:

On this day in 1894, the first bottles of Coca Cola were sold by a confectionary magnate, Joseph A. Biedenham, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. On March 12, 1912, the Girl Guides, later known as the Girl Scouts of the USA, were founded. Exactly one year later, the future capital of Australia was christened Canberra, though the nation’s capital remained in Melbourne until they finished building Canberra in 1927.

Meanwhile in New Zealand, Elizabeth II remains Queen of the country.

On this day in 1930, Mahatma Gandhi began his 200-mile Salt March to the sea to protest the British monopoly of and tax on salt manufacture. Gandhi and a huge retinue who had joined the march reached a seaside village on April 5, and, as Wikipedia reports,

The following morning, after a prayer, Gandhi raised a lump of salty mud and declared, “With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.” He then boiled it in seawater, producing illegal salt. He implored his thousands of followers to likewise begin making salt along the seashore, “wherever it is convenient” and to instruct villagers in making illegal, but necessary, salt.

Here’s a 4-minute documentary on the March:

On March 12, 1933, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt held his first radio “fireside chat” to Americans.  Five years later, the Anschluß took place as German troops poured into and occupied Austria, effecting a union of the two countries.

On this date in 1961, the first winter ascent of the Eiger’s North Face was completed after six days; the climbers were Toni Kinshofer, Anderl Mannhardt, Walter Almberger, and Toni Hiebeler. Here’s a video of what it’s like to climb the deadly North Face, and not in winter.

On this day in 1994, the Church of England ordained its first woman priests, and on March 12, 2009 the cheating financier Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty to securities fraud, mail fraud, and other crimes that had resulted in bilking investors of $18 billion. Now 80, he remains in jail in North Carolina, ineligible for release until 2139 when he will be dead.

Notables born on this day include George Berkeley (1685), Charles Boycott (1832), W. H. R. Rivers (1864), Vaslav Nijinsky (1890), Julia Lennon (1914), Jack Kerouac (1922), Wally Schirra (1923), Edward Albee (1928), Liza Minelli (1946), Mitt Romney (1947), James Taylor (1948), and Jake Tapper (1969).

Those who took The Big Nap on March 12 include Cesare Borgia (1507), George Westinghouse (1914), Sun Yat-sen (1925), Charlie Parker (1955), and Yehudi Menuhin (1999).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is getting ready for spring chores:

Hili: We have to get ready to work the fields.
A: It’s high time.
In Polish:
Hili: Musimy się przygotwać do prac polowych.
Ja: Najwyższy czas.

And in nearby Wloclawek, Leon admires himself:

Leon: My left side is definitely better.
Leon: Lewy profil mam zdecydowanie lepszy.

Here’s the world turned sideways. The Americas turn into a DUCK! Coincidence? I don’t think so. (h/t: Amy)

And another groaner from Facebook; if you don’t understand it I don’t have the spoons to explain:

Besides the Green New Deal, we need the Fur New Deal:


Reader Amber (and others) have told me that there’s a good new show called “After Life”, featuring the inimitable Diane Morgan (whose performance gets good reviews). But it’s on Netflix, and I am a cheapskate who watches films only in movie theaters and doesn’t pay for television. That said, if you’ve seen it, weigh in below:

From reader Nilou, who is horrified that the Central Park Mandarin duck (nicknamed “Mandarin Patinkin” by NYers) is losing his looks. But he’ll come back even prettier after his molt!

From Heather Hastie, who had a spiritual moment watching this:

https://twitter.com/LlFEUNDERWATER/status/1104151828252553216

Tweets from Matthew There’s no doubt that something is seriously wrong with this guy. Who eats Kit Kats like this? In the Twitter comments many others share their feeling of “The horror! The horror!”

https://twitter.com/simonfromharlow/status/1105062314317938689

I notice that this tweet has now been removed, probably for fear of insulting the electrician, but the picture featured a half-eaten Kit Kat that resembled this one:

In the comments to that one, by the way, the readers urged Ms. Byrd to dump her boyfriend. Well, in all of these the idea may have been stolen, as Matthew found another:

Way too many movies and not enough copulation!:

I vote “twice a month”, but I’m not all that sure!

Matthew loves these illusions:

Tweets from Grania. This gorgeous kitten is making “the silent meow,” the most heartrending gesture a cat can make. There is in fact a book with that title.

https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1105132528296439808

Well, there goes “a fact the whole world knows” down the drain:

Like a glass-bottomed boat, but it’s a canoe!

https://twitter.com/MichaelGalanin/status/1103504693580451840

Who would have thought that a baby axolotl could be so endearing?

https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1104030579014590465

Maru plays the drums

March 11, 2019 • 2:30 pm

It’s hard to believe that Maru, the tubby Scottish fold who lives in Japan, has been on the Internet for eleven years. So be it: he’s probably the world’s most popular cat, and here he plays the drums with his tail. How cool is that?

And notice that, like a good jazz drummer, Maru often hits off the beat.

 

Is there a cogent argument against free speech?

March 11, 2019 • 12:30 pm

I’m not 100%, set-in-stone wedded to the American courts’ interpretation of free speech and the First Amendment. I think it’s the best interpretation going, but I’m always looking for viable arguments that it should be modified. Here’s what purports to be one, but in the end proves limp and toothless.

The argument is given in a Vox interview in which University of Chicago law professor Brian Leiter, who also has a personal website called Leiter Reports, argues that the First-Amendment style of free speech is not the best we can do for expression, and suggests that some modifications are in order. He’s interviewed by Sean Illing, who is a free-speech absolutist like me; and Illing pushes back hard.

The interview is frustrating because, though Illing asks good questions, Leiter is very slippery about what modifications he would make to our speech laws to improve things. But the discussion stems from an argument Leiter made in a paper in the Sydney Law Review, a paper I haven’t read (it’s free online here).

So I’ll just go by what Leiter and Illing say in their discussion. First, Illing’s introductory characterization of Leiter’s argument:

Leiter argues that we shouldn’t think of free speech as an inherently good thing and that there are negative consequences for pretending that it is.

The sort of speech he’s talking about is public, the kind of stuff we hear on television or read in newspapers. He’s not suggesting we should even think about regulating private or interpersonal speech. And in fact, he doesn’t think we can even regulate public speech, mostly because we just don’t have a reliable way to do it.

But he does raise some interesting objections against what’s often called the “autonomy” defense of free speech, which holds that people are only free to the extent that they’re allowed to say what they want, read what they want, and determine for themselves what is true and what is false.

According to Leiter, this is a bogus argument because people are not actually free in the way we suppose. We’re all conditioned by our environment, and what we want and think are really just products of social, economic, and psychological forces beyond our control. If he’s right, then the “autonomy” defenses of free speech are just wrong, and probably dangerous.

I don’t quite get this, and perhaps Leiter’s paper can add some clarification. The “autonomy” defense of free speech seems to me a non-defense. Of course we’re all products of our environment and the like, but that’s neither my defense of free speech nor my argument about why speech shouldn’t be censored. That argument is simply that no matter who is conditioned by their genes and environment to say what, it’s best for society to allow free speech so long as it doesn’t cause palpable physical injuries or psychological damage due to harassment (or to slander or libel) that would harm society were they allowed. This says nothing about autonomy.

But let’s proceed. In what ways does Leiter say speech would be better off if it had more restrictions than America has now?  It seems to me to boil down to one thing: the American populace isn’t sufficiently mature to create and reap the benefits of free speech, and so needs guidance to winnow out irrelevant arguments. For example, Leiter says this:

My paper is about running through all the arguments people make in defense of this assumption and showing why they don’t hold up. I’ll start with the simplest one, which is this idea that a free marketplace of ideas is likely to help promote discovery of the truth. This is probably the most famous defense of free speech associated with the British philosopher John Stuart Mill.

But what people often don’t stop and notice is that even Mill thought certain background conditions had to be established for it to really be true that a marketplace of ideas would lead to the discovery of the truth. Mill said, “People have to be educated, and they have to be mature.” Those are pretty thin conditions, and you might worry that a lot more is required for a real marketplace of ideas to be conducive to the truth.

As I point out, we have an important institution in American society that aims to discover the truth, namely the court system. And the striking thing about the court system is that it completely rejects the marketplace of ideas view. It says, “It’s crazy to think we’ll discover the truth by just permitting people to express any view they want, make any claim they want.” In the court system, we impose massive restrictions on speech to facilitate the discovery of truth.

Well, the courts have legal restrictions that are supposed to facilitate the discovery of the truth, like keeping out irrelevant testimony and the like. Leiter also mentions that he doesn’t allow free speech in his classes: he determines the syllabus and what is discussed.  But to do these things in society at large, we would have to have someone determine which arguments are relevant and which are not. In other words, we’d have to have a censor.

And that is where Leiter punts. After Illing squeezes him hard about the inevitable question, “Who is to be the censor?”, Leiter has no answer:

. . . at the end, I actually argue for a pretty strong libertarian approach to free speech, but not on the grounds that the speech necessarily has value. A lot of it has no value, as you correctly said in your summary.

But basically I don’t think we can be confident that the regulation of speech, or the regulators of speech, would make the right choices in discerning what is good and bad speech, or what is helpful or unhelpful speech. But this says more about the pathologies of the American system than it does about the value of freedom of speech.

. . . Sean Illing

Given everything you’ve said, given the paucity of realistic solutions, what’s the point of an article like this? Why make the case against free speech if there aren’t any viable means of improving speech?

Brian Leiter

The fact that there aren’t solutions now isn’t a reason not to identify a problem. And of course, one point of the article is to challenge what I think is a slightly unthinking popular consensus. Free speech isn’t an inherently good thing; it can be good or it can be bad, and normally we think of the law as something that can step in when things can be both good or bad, like operating a motor vehicle, for example, which is why we have rules about it.

But in the case of speech, we have good reason to be worried about whether we’ll make the right rules. And therefore, the real question that we need to talk about isn’t about assuming the intrinsic value of speech. It’s about why we have a political and economic order that makes it impossible for us to regulate all the bad things about speech in a reliable way.

You see why I find this discussion frustrating?

 

 

More about Ronald Sullivan and his unfair treatment by Harvard University

March 11, 2019 • 10:20 am

Yesterday I described the situation of Ronald Sullivan, a professor of law at Harvard University who is also resident head (“faculty dean”) of Winthrop House, an undergraduate residence hall where students live for their first three years in college. Like many law professors, Sullivan has a private practice, as well as a long history of social-activist legal work. These include, as the New Yorker interview below describes, “director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School and previous [service] as the director of the Washington, D.C., Public Defender Service. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he helped free thousands of Louisianans who had been incarcerated without due process.”

He’s also the first black faculty dean at Harvard and has other social-justice cred for defending minorities (including the family of Michael Brown) and women.

None of this mattered after Sullivan signed on as a member of Harvey Weinstein’s defense team. Students protested and called for his resignation and firing, and, to Harvard’s eternal shame, the University launched a “climate review” of Winthrop House, an action that might result in Sullivan’s being booted from the house. Two deans also seemed to take the side of the students, including Rakesh Khurana, Dean of the College and an apparently clueless man who was behind Harvard’s policy of punishing both men and women who belong to single-sex organizations not affiliated with Harvard.

Like many criminal-defense lawyers, Sullivan defends people on all sides of the spectrum, including people, like Weinstein, who are accused of odious crimes. That’s par for the course, as everyone deserves a defense, and a vigorous defense is essential in keeping our legal system strong. This seems like common sense to me, and I can’t find anything to criticize in Sullivan’s decision. (As I said, I have worked as an expert witness for people accused of assault, rape, and murder, though I did it for free.) Some readers disagreed; more about that below.

At any rate, 52 law professors at Harvard, including 11 women, wrote to the Boston Globe supporting Sullivan and criticizing any attempt by Harvard to punish him for working for Weinstein; click on the screenshot below (a list of the 52 signatories is here).

One excerpt:

We call upon our university’s administration to recognize that such legal advocacy in service of constitutional principles is not only fully consistent with Sullivan’s roles of law professor and dean of an undergraduate house, but also one of the many possible models that resident deans can provide in teaching, mentoring, and advising students. The university owes a robust response to allegations of sexual harassment and other sexual misconduct. We respect students’ right to protest professor Sullivan’s choice of clients. But we view any pressure by Harvard’s administration for him to resign as faculty dean of Winthrop, because of his representation or speaking on behalf of clients, as inconsistent with the university’s commitment to the freedom to defend ideas, however unpopular.

Greg Mayer and others called my attention to Isaac Chotiner’s interview with Sullivan that appeared a few days ago in The New Yorker (click on screenshot below for free access). Sullivan is understandably reluctant to discuss the details of Weinstein’s case or of his own involvement, but he does make some revealing and enlightening statements, including his view that Harvard is going after him because he’s an African-American. I’ve put some excepts from the interview below.

Here Sullivan intimates that he got involved in this case at least partly because of legal issues—ones that he can’t describe (that is understandable as it may bear on Weinstein’s defense). Chotiner’s questions are in bold.

Why did you decide to represent Harvey Weinstein?

I have been a criminal-defense lawyer since I started as a public defender in Washington, D.C., in the mid-nineties. I represent any number of people charged with crimes across the country.

Is there some reason you chose him? I imagine you get a lot of opportunities.

I had some discussions with lawyers who represented Mr. Weinstein and then had a discussion with Mr. Weinstein. As a result of those discussions, I decided that this case was sufficiently important to the rule of law that I decided to take it on.

It was something about its importance to the rule of law that you feel like you can’t get into? Is that what you’re saying?

Correct.

Here Sullivan makes the point that despite his wealth, Weinstein is still at a disadvantage in terms of legal resources:

Do you think that is true even with white, rich, powerful defendants who are unpopular? Do you think they are still at a disadvantage?

Absolutely, because they walk into the court with the presumption of guilt, as opposed to the presumption of innocence. And it is important to note that, even with rich defendants, their resources pale in comparison to the resources of the government, which has an entire prosecutorial office and law enforcement at its disposal. Even rich people are at a resource disadvantage walking in, so the popular mythology that you can buy justice really doesn’t apply in the criminal context.

Here is Sullivan’s response to Chotiner when asked if he has rethought his decision to take on Weinstein as a client after Harvard students protested. This, I think, is the definitive response to those students who call for Sullivan’s resignation because he can’t deal with them empathically or makes them feel “unsafe”. The emphasis below is mine:

I do recognize that some students are genuinely upset with the decision to take the case. They are concerned with the allegations that are lodged against my client, and they are concerned that this will somehow impact the atmosphere at Winthrop House. Those are the major concerns. I should say, even more precisely, some students are concerned that people will be less inclined to speak about sexual assault in the House. I take any genuine student concern very seriously, even if those such concerns do not represent the majority of students in the House. It’s an important voice, and it’s one that I’ve listened to and continue listening to.

As a professor, I am, at the root, a teacher. Part of my response has been to acknowledge the genuine feelings of some of my students and encourage an open, free, frank, robust conversation about issues regarding sexual assault, but also issues regarding our long-standing constitutional traditions of due process and fair representation of clients. I do believe that the two can be meaningfully separated. That is to say: lawyers are not extensions or alter egos of their clients. Also, lawyers do not represent the ideology of their clients. Rather, lawyers are engaged in a long-standing tradition of service to people accused by the state. Just as surgeons don’t decline to work on people because they’re bad, lawyers too have these same obligations once they undertake a representation.

Here Sullivan explains one of the ways he discusses the issue with upset students.

It is important for students to feel as though they can discuss any topic in the House. I’ve reassured them of that. Those conversations go something like this, that “your dean, Dean Sullivan, has represented over the years very many women who have been victims of sexual assault,” that “I’ve represented Winthrop students, women Winthrop students, who have been victims of sexual assault.” [Sullivan added that he has represented Winthrop students both at Harvard and in court proceedings.] I’ve also pointed them to some of my work as part of a team of scholars who have been going about the business of redrafting the Model Penal Code’s sexual-assault provisions, which are very much outdated.

Here’s where he brings up the topic of the University being racially motivated in singling him out for “investigation”. Frankly, I have some trouble agreeing with him, as Harvard would look really bad, not to mention opening itself up for a discrimination lawsuit, if Sullivan’s race had any bearing on the issue. No, I think he was singled out because the students (and the student newspaper, the Crimson) protested so vehemently, and because the client was Harvey Weinstein rather than a garden-variety murderer.

Do you feel that any of the attacks against you have been racially motivated?

Yes.

Specifically?

No faculty dean in the history of the house system has been subjected to this sort of process in the middle of some pending controversy. It’s just never happened before.

You mean the process of the students being upset or of the faculty saying they’re going to look into it?

No, this climate survey. It’s absolutely never happened before, and I do not believe that it would happen again to any non-minority faculty dean. . .

But I do agree with Sullivan when he places the blame on this investigation, and on the lack of support he’s gotten from Harvard, on the administration rather than the students. That’s a charitable (and brave) thing to do:

Is this on the dean of Harvard College, who launched this survey, or is this in response to student pressure? Do you blame the administration, or do you think that the students forced his hand?

No, students have every right to protest. It’s in the nature of students to protest. The adults in the room, however, do not have to react in the way that they have.

. . . The other thing I want to say is that we can’t lose sight of the fact that one of the reasons this is so troubling is that I am not personally accused of engaging in any misconduct. Given the pitch that the administration has allowed this to continue at and increase, one would think that I had engaged in some form of misconduct with a colleague or a student. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. This is all some vicarious association with a client whom several in our community don’t like. If that becomes the new standard-bearer, then we’re going to see continued threat.

Finally, Sullivan responds to the argument that he should modify his behavior because of his pastoral role as a student advisor/mentor:

What do you say to people who say that this role at Winthrop House is specifically a role in these students’ lives, and it’s about making a community, it’s not about the classroom, and so the standard should be a little different?

I say it is correct that it’s not just about the classroom, but it’s not just about being a thermometer and registering the temperature of students at any given time. Rather, it’s about being the leader of a living learning center where we live together and we learn together. This is Harvard University. Ideas have to continue to be paramount. To the degree that we police certain ideas and don’t police others, we are in trouble as a university. That pains me the most.

As evidence of that, I think I told you at the beginning, last year, I tried a very high-profile sexual-assault case in Missouri. Not a peep from the administration about this being antagonistic to the pastoral role of the faculty dean. This feels very much like a form of content policing from administrative voices. If it were a problem, it would’ve been a problem earlier, which leads me to think that this has everything to do with a small but vocal group of protesters. Look, one has to take seriously the concerns of students. But from the vantage point of a professor and administrator, you also have to insure that the university is a space where multiple ideas can exist and that other students aren’t silenced.

I want to make two other points here. First, it seems as if it isn’t the nature of the crime itself that is so important in the protest by Harvard Students, but the fact that it was a crime allegedly committed by Harvey Weinstein: multiple sexual assaults under the threat of him using his power to injure careers.  But why would students protest about Sullivan defending Weinstein when, I presume, they wouldn’t protest if he defended a murderer? I can think of an explanation—that women students might feel that Sullivan was not sympathetic to their concerns about sexual assault—but this doesn’t hold up when you consider that you could make the same argument touting a lack of empathy for student concerns about being assaulted or killed.

Second, several readers yesterday said that they agreed with the students that Sullivan should either leave Winthrop House or stop representing Weinstein or—indeed—anybody. I ask those people this: would you then say that I, Jerry Coyne, am unsuited to mentor students in this way because I once was on the defense team of rapists, assaulters, and murderers, including accused killer O. J. Simpson? If not, why not?

People who argue that Sullivan is engaging in a “dual and conflicting role” by being head of Winthrop House while defending Harvey Weinstein, I submit, don’t understand how the law works, and how a defense attorney’s character is not compromised by his defending those accused of odious crimes. Just remember what Sullivan said above: “lawyers are not extensions or alter egos of their clients. Also, lawyers do not represent the ideology of their clients. Rather, lawyers are engaged in a long-standing tradition of service to people accused by the state. Just as surgeons don’t decline to work on people because they’re bad, lawyers too have these same obligations once they undertake a representation.”

That is a very good point, and gets at the heart of the issue. Would the students call for the resignation of a surgeon who was dean of their house if he operated on and saved the life of someone like Harvey Weinstein? If they were consistent, they should, but that would look pretty stupid. It’s only because Sullivan is a lawyer that this is an issue.

More email from evolution-haters

March 11, 2019 • 8:45 am

Well, maybe “evolution hater” is too strong a term for this woman from Virginia, who wrote me an email this morning. She said “there is no need to respond,” but given that she sent me an unsolicited email, I’ll send her the link to this post, along with the comments. Feel free to respond, but again—be polite. (I informed the retired Air Force officer who wrote me yesterday of the readers’ responses.)

Dear Professor Coyne,

I read with interest your review of Behe’s book.  As a nonscientist, I am not in a position to make any critical judgment on either view.  As the mother of five and grandmother of seven, I know what the younger generation is seeking- authenticity without vitriol, Truth without preaching and a genuine desire to tackle the “Tough” questions of our time- which include  open discussions of the Four big questions- Origin, Meaning, Morality and Destiny.

Personally, I find evolutionary theory sorely lacking in any meaningful answer to any of theses questions and the attempts to address them fall into the hubris and arrogance of scientism rather than the humility that stems from wonder at the order of the universe and a willingness to admit we do not know everything.There is no need to respond.

There was a postscript:

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing.  Pascal

My comments:

1.) It saddens me to see a non-scientist claim that they’re not capable of making a critical judgement of ID. The arguments are not that arcane and have been addressed in many popular venues. I think this is just intellectual laziness, or perhaps an unwillingness to engage with the criticisms of ID.

2.) Why is a scientific discussion, or promoting evolution, which happens to be true, “preaching”?  In fact, any attempt to say something that contradicts another person’s religious beliefs is always construed as “vitriol.”

3.) Evolutionary biology doesn’t really deal with the questions of “Origin, Meaning, Morality, and Destiny” except insofar as abiogenesis (the study of how life began) can be considered part of evolutionary biology, and insofar as some aspects of morality—its roots in our animal ancestors—can be examined scientifically.

But, of course, religion, while it may tackle these tough questions, doesn’t answer them. For example, what is the proper moral behavior? If you’re a Christian it’s one thing (actually more, depending on what kind of Christian you are), if you’re a Muslim it’s another thing, and if you’re a Scientologist it’s still another.  The fact is that evolutionary biology actually answers the questions it asks, while religion does not. (Is there a God? Who knows? If there is one, is it the Christian God, Allah, or Shiva? Who knows?) Or if religion does provide answers, there are better (and more consistent) answers provided by secular humanism and ethics.

4.) Once again we see the scientism canard leveled at people like me (at least I presume it’s me, since she’s reacting to my book review). Well, I admit that we don’t know everything, and I know of no scientist who disagrees. The thing is that in 100 years we’ll know more about biology and evolution than we do now, while theologians and believers won’t know one iota more about the divine. It is not the scientists who have hubris, but the believers. And any changes and improvements in morality will, as Steve Pinker argues, come not from religion but from humanism.