Squirrel nap time

July 24, 2013 • 11:27 am

The juvenile squirrels I’ve been feeding have become quite tame, and let me watch them from my office window with the blinds open. I can also watch them eating from only a few inches away without the slightest apprehension on their part (I have to stay behind the windowpane, though).

The mother squirrel, apparently pregnant again, occasionally visits for a ration of peanuts. (I’ve learned that gray squirrels have two broods per year, with the second remaining with mom in the nest over the winter.)

Anyway, after a big meal of peanuts, sunflower seeds, Virginia creeper buds, and water, this pair of siblings is taking a nap on my windowsill. I can literally lean sideways two feet to watch them as I write.

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Tails make handy umbrellas when the sun is high:

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Muncie newspaper calls for full disclosure of Hedin investigation

July 24, 2013 • 8:51 am

Now, along with the Discovery Institute and the Freedom from Religion Foundation—strange bedfellows indeed—the Muncie Star-Press has called for the Ball State University committee investigating Eric Hedin to disclose their report, or at least a summary of it. Here’s yesterday’s editorial, “Findings in report should be made public“, in full:

Did he or didn’t he? We may never know.

Ball State University officials this week refused to make public the findings of a faculty report delving into whether assistant professor Eric Hedin brought religion into a “Boundaries of Science” course.

Ball State is sticking to a policy against releasing files it deems to be of a private nature. The decision is regrettable because the university’s action does nothing to shed light on the matter or to settle this controversy.

The Indiana Public Access Counselor determined there is nothing on the state’s open records laws that prevents BSU from releasing the findings. The law gives the university discretion over its release.

So the public may never know whether Hedin espoused “intelligent design” in his class, or whether he stuck to straight science, or whether he did something else. And while the public might not get answers, neither will the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which started the whole controversy by sending a threatening letter to the university alleging the honors science course was a gateway by a government-paid employee (Hedin) to show that “science proves the truth of religion.”

As we mentioned in an earlier editorial, Hedin’s career could be at risk because of these allegations. The university might not be doing him any favors by keeping the report under wraps.

Which leads to another issue: Why couldn’t the university release a summary of the report, without releasing the actual documents? Anything to shed some light on the controversy.

It’s rather ironic that concerns made public prompted an investigation, but the findings will remain in the dark, and a shadow of doubt will follow Professor Hedin.

How does this action serve anybody’s best interest?

Well, this sounds good, and I agree that the findings should be released, but the paper’s reasons are misguided.  The university is in fact doing Hedin a big favor by keeping the report under wraps. I’m pretty sure that report will show that Hedin not only proselytized for Christianity in his class, but taught an unbalanced course slanted towards an intelligent-design view of the cosmos.  And I’m just guessing, but I think the syllabus and student evaluations will show the same thing.  But the university won’t fire Hedin: at best they will make him stop teaching that course, and they may not even announce it publicly. (We’ll then have to see if it appears on the syllabus next year.)

What I think Ball State University is doing here is protecting not just Hedin but, more important, themselves.  It will be seen (if the reports of anonymous students are true) that complaints were filed with the administration a while back, but were ignored.  And the panel, if they have any credibility as scientists, will decry Hedin’s teaching of intelligent design as unscientific.  That, too, will look bad in light of the Physics and Astronomy chairman’s defense of his course.

There’s no way this report will make Ball State look good, and that’s why they’re keeping it under wraps.  The only thing that puzzles me is whether they will make some public announcement about the fate of Hedin’s course.

Why there is no objective morality

July 24, 2013 • 5:07 am

A lot of the philosophers and thinkers I respect are coming around to the view that there can be an “objective” morality, which I take to mean this: rational consideration of the world’s facts will reveal criteria whereby things can be seen objectively as either right or wrong. It may be hard to get those facts, but once you do the moral path would, it seems, be clear.

I still don’t accept this, and for the reason that, unlike science, morality also includes “add ons”.  That is, after you divine the consequences of any action, one still has to add on the stipulation that those consequences comport with some standard of “rightness” or “wrongness.”  Now people like Sam Harris claim that those standards are objective, too (his is “does an act increase general well being?”) but I don’t think it’s so simple, and neither do other philosophers.

In contrast, science has no add-ons. Once you find out that birds descended from dinosaurs, nothing else need be added to make this an objective truth (provisional truth, of course!).

To see the problem of objective morality, consider this question:

“Is it right or wrong to eat meat, even if the animals are humanely raised?”

How do you answer this, even using the criterion of “well being”? Whose well being is being assessed? Humans, animals, or both? And how do you trade off human with animal well-being? Is it immoral to kill a mosquito just because it bites you? What if the mosquito lives in a place where such creatures are disease-free? Does your annoyance trump the life of an animal? It doesn’t for the Jains.

Any criterion of “moral action,” including “well being,” will end up so nebulous that in many cases it becomes useless—as in the above.

Let me hasten to add that I agree with Sam’s view that morality—although I prefer to avoid the terms “moral or immoral”—will nearly always jibe with what increases general well being. Like him, I am a consequentialist, and favor those actions that increase well being.

Where we differ is that I don’t think the criterion of “well being” is an objective one. It is a subjective choice, and can’t be chosen based on a scientific study of nature. (In contrast, the molecular structure of benzene can be objectively discerned.) And “well being” is sufficiently nebulous that it can be stretched to cover everything, in which case it becomes useless.  Is it moral to torture a prisoner if there is a 1/1000 chance that he will reveal where a bomb is planted that will kill 100,000 people? You could argue, based on well being, that torture is not only mandated, but required, in this case. But one could also argue that “well being” includes the structure of a society, and it’s not good to create a society in which anyone can be tortured.

I’m just working out some thoughts here, so don’t take this as a final pronouncement.  But I still have difficulty in seeing how “morality” can be objective in any sense.  Once you decide on a criterion, of course, then all else follows. But it is the case that “well being” always comports with what our notion of morality is? And if it doesn’t, should we revise our notion of morality to bring it in line with “well being”?  Or, if you agree that morality is objective, do you have some criterion other than well being?

But I emphasize again, that, as a consequentialist and determinist, I don’t favor the notion of “moral responsibility,” which I see as inimical to needed legal reforms. I would favor, instead, using the term “actions that are either good or bad for society.” This still leads to punishment on the grounds of keeping bad people out of society, as well as rehabilitating them and deterring others. But it eliminates the notion of retributive punishment, which in my view adds nothing to society.

Finally, it’s clear that under the standard of “general well being,” nearly all of us would be acting morally by giving a third of our income to the poor and starving people of the world.  Yet we don’t. Are we then immoral? Or are we going to selfishly argue that well being is actually maximized if we’re able to keep as much of our money as we want, and bestow its largesse on our family and friends?

Bob Mankoff picks his favorite New Yorker cartoons

July 24, 2013 • 4:35 am

To accompany a TED talk by cartoonist Bob Mankoff, the TED blog reproduces Mankoff’s eleven favorite New Yorker cartoons of all time. (He’s currently the magazine’s cartoon editor as well.)

Be sure to watch Mankoff’s hilarious 21-minute talk on “The anatomy of a New Yorker cartoon.” The summary:

The New Yorker receives around 1,000 cartoons each week; it only publishes about 17 of them. In this hilarious, fast-paced, and insightful talk, the magazine’s longstanding cartoon editor and self-proclaimed “humor analyst” Bob Mankoff dissects the comedy within just some of the “idea drawings” featured in the magazine, explaining what works, what doesn’t, and why.

I’ve chosen six of my favorites from Mankoff’s choices. His analysis of each cartoon and its artist is given in the captions.

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“This is how humor works, by bringing together two different things that usually don’t go together,” Mankoff says. “Usually, revolutionary Che Guevara is the T-shirt, but it turns out he admires another icon, Bart Simpson, a rebel in his own way. There’s a tiny bit of disparagement here; Che is a little downcast. But Bart wearing Che wouldn’t be funny.” Matt Diffee, February 2, 2004.
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“This is a wonderful example of bringing together two different levels of association, with a tiny bit of disparagement against the French, which is always enjoyable,” says Mankoff with a wink. “Normally it’d be a Swiss army knife but here it’s French so it’s all corkscrews. It’s saying they like wine, which isn’t too bad. It’s not saying they’re inveterate alcoholics. For the viewer, there’s the little cognitive thrill of putting things together.” Michael Crawford, September 10, 2001.
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“If you read The New Yorker, you must know a little about something,” says Mankoff, who submitted his first cartoons to the magazine in 1974. “So you know that’s Einstein, you know about the theory of relativity, you know about sexual relations between men and women. And when you know all that, you know it’s funny.” Eric Lewis, November 13, 2000.
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“You can’t go wrong with stupidity,” says Mankoff wryly. “When in doubt, make fun of an idiot.” He relents: “But this is done in a lovely way; it’s a lovely drawing. The guy who’s doing this stuff is dumb, but the cartoon is clever.” Jack Ziegler, July 11, 1988.

And of course we must have a cat:

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“This takes an empty-headed cliché and adds a little bit of scatological reference. The two associations make this a great cartoon,” says Mankoff, who adds musingly, “We definitely don’t want cats to think outside the box.” Leo Cullum, November 30, 1998.

Finally, my favorite, by  the inimitable Roz Chast. If you’re of a certain age you’ll immediately resonate with its bittersweet humor:

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“This is a great cartoon, really, because it’s humor that is meaningful and absolutely true,” says Mankoff. “If we look at the obituaries and see our own age there, it’s chilling.” Roz Chast, October 25, 1993.

h/t: Grania

The Guardian institutes BabyBlock

July 23, 2013 • 11:51 am

I’m not sure why a liberal paper like the Guardian is so obsessed with news of the Royal Baby, but at least they realize that some of their readers aren’t down with it. And so, on their webpage, you can see see this:

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Enlarged:

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“Republican” in the UK denotes someone opposed to the monarchy; such folk naturally wouldn’t want to read about the Royal Baby.

One Twitter user has found something of infinitely greater interest:

Picture 3h/t: Michael

Templeton wastes another $3 million

July 23, 2013 • 9:45 am
From an excited St. Louis University, whose philosophy department has just been handed a big wad of cash by the sticky fingers of Templeton, we get this announcement:
Saint Louis University
THE PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY OF INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY

Project directors: John Greco and Eleonore Stump

Saint Louis University has received a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to explore the subject of intellectual humility. The Templeton Foundation will contribute over $2.7 million to the project, with contributions by SLU bringing the total grant to over $3 million.

The Philosophy and Theology of Intellectual Humility project is being led by John Greco and Eleonore Stump.

The project will focus on a variety of philosophical and theological issues relevant to the topic of intellectual humility, as informed by current research in the empirical sciences, including: virtue epistemology; regulative epistemology; peer disagreement; intellectual humility, intellectual autonomy and deference to authority; religious pluralism; divine hiddenness; intellectual humility and theological method; biases, heuristics, dual-process theories and evolution; intersubjectivity and mind reading.

The Saint Louis University effort complements the activities and research occurring under Templeton’s Science of Intellectual Humility project by encouraging philosophers and theologians to integrate empirical research on questions surrounding intellectual humility into their own investigations.

A number of opportunities are available for interested scholars, graduate students, and groups. Applications for the various positions are now open. Please see details below. Inquiries can be sent to Humility@slu.edu.

When you hear the word “humility,” it’s invariably from the religion side of the religion/science debate.  You don’t hear scientists calling theologians to be more “humble,” but that’s because scientists don’t pay attention to theology. If they did, they’d realize that it’s the theologians and not the scientists who require humility; after all, scientists aren’t ashamed of admitting that they don’t know something.

Theologians love to tell scientists to be humble because it’s one of their few pathetic ways to go after a paradigm which is infinitely more successful than religion in producing knowledge about the universe.

And Templeton has once again wasted a huge amount of money.

Ball State University seals records of review panel on Eric Hedin (and bonus anti-ID letter)

July 23, 2013 • 8:42 am

A piece in today’s Muncie Star-Press reports that Ball State University (BSU) has turned down freedom-of-information requests to release the report of the professorial panel investigating Eric Hedin’s teaching of intelligent design (ID) and Christianity in his science class.  Here’s the official refusal of the Star-Press‘s request:

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The refusal (photo by Seth Slabaugh)

I suspect the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) will pursue this refusal, whose grounds appear to be, well, a bit flimsy. As the paper reports:

The FFRF and The Discovery Institute, an intelligent design think tank that is supporting physicist Hedin, are criticizing Ball State’s decision to keep the records secret.

There is nothing in the law to prevent the university from disclosing the records, according to Indiana’s Public Access Counselor.

While it is the policy of the state of Indiana that the public is entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of public employees, the university is citing two exceptions to that policy.

First, the personnel files of public employees are excluded from Indiana’s Access to Public Records Act (APRA), except in certain situations such as when an employee is suspended, demoted or discharged.

Ball State is also denying access to the records on grounds they are “deliberative materials” that are “expressions of opinion” and are “communicated for the purpose of decision making,” another exception to APRA.

“The (student) evaluations are used in the promotion, tenure and salary review processes,” Sali Falling, Ball State’s general counsel, said.

My own take in the paper:

Jerry Coyne, a University of Chicago evolutionary biologist, told The Star Press the student evaluations “bear critically on whether the university knew of student complaints about Hedin, which they claim they didn’t, and if so, how long they’ve known about them.” It was Coyne who called FFRF’s attention to a complaint about Hedin’s class.

He doesn’t understand why the review panel’s entire report is closed. What if the panel commented on intelligent design? How does that part of the report violate Hedin’s privacy?

Well, they should have quoted me rather than characterized what I said in the second paragraph, but never mind.  We will see what kind of report, if any, Ball State produces. My guess is that they’ll just make a brief announcement of what they’ve done about Hedin’s course.  If they don’t make a more general and public statement decrying the teaching of ID, they’ll look bad.

And here’s a conundrum:

Based on his knowledge of the records, Joe Hoage, the Indiana Public Access Counselor, believes the university complied with the law when it denied The Star Press access to the documents.On the other hand, the university would not be breaking the law if it released the records, Hoage said.

I’m betting that the final decision will come down in two weeks, and that Hedin will no longer be allowed to teach the course as a science course. If that happens, you can expect howls of protest from both the Discovery Institute and the benighted folks at BSU who actually seem to like intelligent design, but masquerade their affection as a love of academic freedom.

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And, at last, a sensible letter at last to the Star-Press from James Bradley, an actual employee of BSU, the head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives at the School of Art. For some reason known only to the Star-Press, this letter appeared only in the paper version and was omitted from the online version, which surely gets more readers. Given the crazy pro-Hedin and pro-Jesus letters published online, one gets a piscine odor about all this.  But at any rate, good for you, Dr. Bradley; you’re an oasis of rationality in a desert of nescience. And it takes a bit of bravery to come forward in this way at a place like BSU.  The following is a scan of Bradley’s letter in the paper:

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