A misguided execution of a cognitively disabled prisoner

October 5, 2018 • 2:46 pm

This report, from the science journal Nature (click on screenshot) shows what happens when punishment is purely retributive.

The story: Vernon Madison killed a police officer in Alabama in 1985. He was sentenced to death.  In the ensuing 33 years on death row, Madison has had multiple strokes that have left him without any memory of the crime. He is, psychologists say, no different from someone born with severe enough intellectual impairment to be deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. But of course Madison was “sane” when he did the crime.

Madison is still scheduled to die. Why? Let Alabama explain:

[Madison’s] lawyers say that, in terms of his intellectual function, there is no difference between his current condition and that of a person born with an intellectual disability. The latter group is protected from execution, thanks to a 2002 Supreme Court decision.

Madison’s case differs because he did not have a severe cognitive impairment at the time he committed the murder, and presumably knew it was wrong. The state of Alabama argues that once the situation is explained to him, Madison also understands that he was tried and will be executed. Alabama says it doesn’t matter whether he remembers it, because he can still rationally conceptualize it.

But psychologists and psychiatrists say that this is very different from a deep understanding of one’s own guilt.

Well, I oppose the death penalty in general, as it doesn’t serve as a deterrent for others, it doesn’t allow those wrongfully convicted to be freed, it’s more expensive than giving life without parole, and it offers no chance of rehabilitation. I understand that if there’s a death penalty that is waived when the murderer is cognitively impaired, then someone who becomes impaired after doing the crime poses a problem for that system.

But it wouldn’t pose a problem to a humane justice system. Madison might be kept in custody for the rest of his life; but he shouldn’t be in prison rather than in a facility for psychiatric cases, or just in a hospital. What is gained by killing him? It’s not a deterrent, and if he’s still a danger he can be sequestered. There’s something especially sickening about killing someone who doesn’t know why he’s being killed, but of course there’s something sickening about executions in general.

Nature takes the humane stance in its op-ed, but the counterarguments show what happens when you dispense retributive justice on the grounds that someone deserves to be killed because they made the wrong choice (my emphasis below):

The case highlights the illogic of capital punishment. Death-penalty proponents argue that it is necessary for justice to be served, as well as to deter others from crime. Yet neither of these conditions applies here. Madison cannot see his execution as justice because he cannot recall his crime. And executing a person with an intellectual disability hardly serves as an example or deterrent.

Regardless of the decision, Madison is not going unpunished. If he escapes execution, he will spend the rest of his life in prison alone, disabled and confused by the world around him. He is no longer a threat. The court should set an example and grant mercy.

The mere phrase “justice must be served” is purely retributive, at least in this case. Killing a cognitively impaired prisoner is not a dispensation of justice to anybody with a drop of humanity in their veins.

Nature implies that a better scientific understanding of brain function could help with this case, which is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I think they’re wrong. Someone shouldn’t be executed simply because they remember their crime and understand that it’s wrong. Neither of those are a matter of free choice.

If science does have a role here, it’s to help us realize that every criminal can be treated like a broken machine, but each should be treated uniquely because each criminal is broken in a different way. Nobody could have chosen not to murder at the moment of a killing. Because of that, because of the failure of execution to be a deterrent, and because of the impossibility of resurrecting executed people later found to be innocent, nobody should be executed.

Ever.

Einstein’s letter impugning religion, scripture, and the idea of God goes up for sale again

October 5, 2018 • 11:15 am

UPDATE: I wrote about this letter six years ago when it was up for sale, but forgot (my post is here). At that time commenter Wolfgang, a German speaker, said that most translations of this letter, including this one are somewhat inaccurate, in particular that the phrase “childish superstition” is simply not in the letter, even in German. Wolfgang suspects this is a meme that has gotten perpetuated, probably because it appeals to some people’s preconceptions.  (The gist of the letter besides that, however, seems pretty much the same.) Nevertheless, please see Wolfgang’s comment if you want his criticism of this and other translations.

__________________

 

Why is everybody so concerned about whether Albert Einstein was religious or an atheist? I suspect that it’s because he’s regarded as The Smartest Man of Our Time, and so his opinion on any issue is taken as authoritative. And if Einstein was religious, well, then accommodationists can claim that science and religion are compatible.

But there are two errors in that train of logic. Someone who’s a great scientist need not necessarily offer the most authoritative word on other topics. Further, just because a scientist might be religious does not—at least to me—show that science and religion are compatible. Readers should be familiar with my argument for incompatibility, so I won’t reprise it here.

Nevertheless, the debate continues, although there’s ample evidence that Einstein was not a theist, but at best a species of pantheist who derived personal awe from the regularity of the laws of nature. He surely wasn’t religious in the sense that religious Americans are religious, as he abjured belief in a personal god, the Scriptures, and so on.

The latest revival of the “Was Einstein religious?” issue is the reappearance of a letter that he wrote in 1954 in response to having read (at the instigation of a friend) a book promoting God and religion.  Einstein’s letter was directed to the book’s author, Erik Gutkind (see below). The letter is up for auction again, and at a fancy price: it was bought in 2008 for $404,000 (Richard Dawkins was an unsuccessful bidder), appeared on eBay six years ago with an asking price of $3 million that wasn’t met, and is now up for auction by Christie’s, with an estimated selling price of between $1 million and $1.5 million. The high price is without doubt due to the letter’s content.

You can see the reports at CNN, LiveScience, and the Washington Post.

It turns out the letter is pretty damning about religion and God, explicitly rejecting both; the former is a “childish superstition” and God “nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness.” The Bible, too, is merely a “collection of primitive legends.” After reading the letter (see below), it would be hard to maintain that Einstein was religious in any sense!

Here’s a photo of the letter (in German) and a translation from Letters of Note:

The translation, with my emphases:

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an “unAmerican attitude.”

Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual “props” and “rationalization” in Freud’s language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,
A. Einstein

Since this was written a year before Einstein’s death, I think it can stand as the culmination of his thinking, regardless of how deistic, theistic, or agnostic he was earlier. Einstein was certainly not mentally incapacitated or demented when he wrote this, and so those who say Einstein was religious will have to somehow rationalize the letter away. I look forward to the religion-osculators at Brainpickings and Krista Tippett’s unctuous show “On Being” coming to grips with Einstein’s words. Tippett, I suspect, would somehow try to claim that Einstein still had a quasi-religious faith.

My efforts to help Trevor the Duck come to naught

October 5, 2018 • 10:45 am

THIS DUCK NEWS JUST IN: After an absence of two full days, Honey and James have returned to the pond. It’s cold and rainy, but I fed them anyway. To add to the drama, one of our office staff reported that earlier this morning there were two drakes in the pond, and one of them chased the other away. The chaser was undoubtedly James going after a would-be suitor of Honey, for James and Honey are together right now in the pond; and there is no sign of any other duck.

On to the story at hand. A while back I published the sad tale of Trevor, a lone and lonely mallard drake who had somehow landed himself on the small island of Niue, a self-governing state affiliated with New Zealand. There were no other ducks there, and no standing water, either. Trevor found himself a small and temporary puddle, but the locals took pity on him, giving him food and topping up his puddle. Even the local fire department pitched in by adding water to the temporary pond. Still, Trevor (named after Trevor Mallard, the real name of New Zealand’s speaker of the House of Representatives) became somewhat of a celebrity, even getting his own Facebook page. Here’s the World’s Loneliest Duck:

Photo: NZ Herald/Claire Trevett

I brought this situation to the attention of Kiwi Heather Hastie, and told her I’d be willing to pay the expenses to relocate Trevor to either of New Zealand’s big islands so he could have permanent water and maybe find a mate. Heather was kind enough to write about this to both Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, and to the Minister of Primary Industries (MPI), the person in charge of animal welfare. Ardern, who was in the U.S., sent a “you’ll hear from us later” reply, but the MPI’s agency wrote back. The news is not good, but at least they cared enough to write to Heather. Here’s their letter:

Dear Heather,

As you know, New Zealand has strict controls on what’s imported into the country, to protect our environment, flora, fauna, and human health. Under the Biosecurity Act 1993, an import health standard (IHS) is required for importation into New Zealand of any biosecurity risk goods such as live animals, and at this time we do not have an IHS that covers live ducks. Unfortunately this means that we are currently unable to allow Trevor to be imported into New Zealand.

Kind regards,
Janessa

Janessa Brown DVM, BSc (Hons)| Senior Adviser, Animal Imports
Animal Health & Welfare Directorate | Regulation and Assurance Branch
Ministry for Primary Industries | Pastoral House 25 The Terrace | PO Box 2526 | Wellington | New Zealand

I of course respect the biological integrity of New Zealand, but I still hope there’s another solution to Trevor’s plight.

The Left eats the Left: A Native American won’t vote for Elizabeth Warren because she supposedly fabricated a Cherokee ancestry

October 5, 2018 • 9:45 am

Grania tells me that I should stop reading HuffPo so often because it makes me angry. She may be right, but I also read Breitbart, The Daily Wire, Everyday Feminism, and a number of sites on the Left and Right, including extremes on both sides. I do that to see what’s going on across the spectrum of politics. People often tell me I should be spending more time criticizing Republicans and Trump instead of the Authoritarian Left, but everybody does the former; it’s low-hanging fruit and available everywhere. Being another voice in the loud chorus against Trump doesn’t get my juices flowing, though views on the odious nature of the Right, Trump, and the Republican ideology are well known.

One of my claims has been that Authoritarian Leftism hurts Leftism as a whole, making our side seem petty, ludicrous, elitist, concerned with identity more than unity, and excessively divisive. The article below is one example (click on the screenshot):

The article is about Elizabeth Warren, and is written by Rebecca Nagle, a woman of Cherokee ancestry. Nagle’s beef, as you’ll see, is that she simply will not vote for Elizabeth Warren as a Presidential candidate—Warren has intimated that she may run in 2020—because Warren supposedly claimed that she had some Cherokee genes.  I haven’t followed this claim, but recall that there is some disagreement about whether Warren really did claim Cherokee ancestry. (That’s why Trump, in his usual boorish manner, called Warren “Pocahontas” during the campaign.)

If Warren did confect a false ancestry to gain some kind of “minority” benefits, then that’s bad, and a blotch on her character. Still, if she ran against any Republican I know, I’d still vote for her. (I doubt that she’ll run, or that she will win if she does run, for she’d be typed as a “Massachusetts liberal,” but I’d vote for her nonetheless.)

Nagle disagrees:

If Warren could simply state, “Like many non-Native Americans, I grew up with stories that my family was part Cherokee and Delaware. After reviewing extensive research on my genealogy going back over 150 years, I now know these stories are not true. I am sorry for any harm my mistaken claims have caused,” I would publicly support her. Such a move would not only be moral and brave but would also serve as a great teaching moment for many Americans who do not understand why false claims to Native identity undermine Native rights.

We don’t know yet if Warren will run for president in 2020, but I know I will not vote for her or stop speaking up against her gross appropriation of Native ancestry until she stops claiming it. Her persistent claims to an ancestry that doesn’t belong to her send the message that the true history and lives of Indigenous people don’t matter.

Two things. First, there’s that claim of “harm” again. Yes, it would irk me if I were in the Cherokee tribe and somebody claimed membership without documentation. But would it break my bones or pick my pocket? No. Nagle is just claiming some sort of victimhood here. No real harm is done to the Cherokee nation by Warren’s claim.  And do read Nagle’s complaint: it’s very long, and an exemplar of the Offense Culture.

More important, I can’t conceive of any liberal not voting for Warren because of this claim. Even if you abstain instead of voting for her or her Republican opponent, you’re still helping Republicans stay in power. This is a prime example of what’s called “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” Which is better: withholding a vote from a decent Democratic candidate because she claimed to share your ancestry, or holding your nose and voting for a better country?

Too often the Left goes for the first option, and that’s one of the reasons we’re not in power. I held my nose and voted for Hillary, and maintain that this would be a better country had she won.

Nobel Peace Prize goes to two anti-rape activists

October 5, 2018 • 8:45 am

In all the fracas about the science Nobels, I completely forgot about the Peace Prize, which, unlike the Economics Prize, is a genuine Nobel Prize. And this year it went two two people, Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist from the Congo, and Nadia Murad, a Yazidi Kurdish activist who was held for several months by ISIS. Both of them have worked tirelessly against the employment of rape as a tool of war. Here’s the citation from the Nobel press release:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes. Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending these victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.

The physician Denis Mukwege has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since the Panzi Hospital was established in Bukavu in 1999, Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults. Most of the abuses have been committed in the context of a long-lasting civil war that has cost the lives of more than six million Congolese.

. . . Nadia Murad is herself a victim of war crimes. She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.

. . . After a three-month nightmare Nadia Murad managed to flee. Following her escape, she chose to speak openly about what she had suffered. In 2016, at the age of just 23, she was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

As the Committee noted, it’s the tenth anniversary of UN Resolution 1820, which deemed sexual violence as a tool of conflict to be a war crime. That, and the rising awareness of sexual violence in peacetime, makes this an especially appropriate award. (Note as well that this year’s Literature Nobel wasn’t awarded because of allegations of sexual abuse against someone associated with the Swedish Academy).

And here are the winners; kudos to them:

Denis Mukwege
Nadia Murad

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 5, 2018 • 8:00 am

Professor Ceiling Cat (Emeritus) requests that you send in your wildlife photos!

We have another batch of lovely arthropod photos from Mark Sturtevant, whose captions are indented.

We begin with an insect called an ambush bug (Phymata pennsylvanica). These are small assassin bugs with wonderfully cryptic shapes and colors that help them lurk on flowers so that they may ambush an unsuspecting pollinator. The first picture is a female, and it illustrates how difficult it may be to find one of these little killers. In the second picture we see a great example of how I usually notice them, which is when I spot a pollinator that looks ‘wrong’. In this case we have a mating pair of ambush bugs and the female is feeding on what is probably a digger bee (Anthophora sp.). These predators clearly do not care if their prey is bigger and well armed. I think of this scene of sex and premature death as “insect life, briefly summarized”. While I was taking pictures, the female was disturbed by my presence and shortly after she dropped her meal into my hand.

What is the insect in the next picture? I had earlier posted this as a kind of contest on a macrophotography web site. No one could guess, and this is probably because it is seen out of its more familiar context. It is a predaceous water bug (genus Belostoma). Normally these insects are in the water, but this one was sitting on the reeds over a pond. In the next picture is another one just under the surface of a pond.

Next is a clavate tortoise beetle (Plagiometriona clavata). These are herbivorous beetles, and many species are incredibly colorful although this one is fairly plain. But I like how the color pattern looks like a teddy bear.

In the Magic Field the dusty parking lot is a busy place for burrowing wasps. The next two pictures are of a sand wasp known as Bicyrtes quadrofasciatus. These lovely little wasps dig a burrow and stock it with paralyzed insects to feed to their larvae. This particular species is known to prefer Hemiptera. They are by far the easiest of the burrowing wasps to photograph since they spend a lot of time managing their burrow, and they are so single-minded about their task that an observing human is pretty much ignored. One merely has to lie down next to a burrow that has a sand wasp inside. When she emerges, she soon decides the prone body is merely part of the scenery, and soon she is back at work moving the dirt around.

I especially love dragonflies, and never tire of just watching their antics near water. One of the most entertaining is the slaty skimmer (Libellula incesta). Territorial males, like the one shown in the next picture, will have a favorite perch that is usually about a foot or so above the water. They frenetically dash off to chase away any intruder, then return to the same spot. So if a perching slaty disappears from my camera viewfinder I merely have to keep looking through the viewfinder. In a few seconds it will return to the same spot.

Finally, we have one of our most common dragonflies: a widow skimmer (Libellula luctuosa). This individual has recently emerged as an adult, and so it has not developed its wing pigments and it can not fly far. I recommend that readers embiggen this picture to appreciate its sparkly new wings.