The Space Toast Pages

Matthew Rasmussen's journal of journals on various topics of interest, published here, there or somewhere since 1999.

The Fiddlers of Rome

Sneering, populist climate science denialism from a self-described Libertarian is nothing shocking, but it should be a bit beneath the New York Times science page. I'm beginning to think the best thing to do is just to sneer back, and keep asking questions about those lovely secondhand robes they've bought from the Emperor.

Leaving aside the question of whether libertarian philosophy is even flexible enough to mount a response to a problem with personalized rewards but socialized consequences, let's make sure we understand why this is denialism, and not skepticism. Climate change "denialism" relies not on a single set of arguments, but on several tiers, whose only commonality is a defense of inaction on the issue:

1. I don't "believe" in climate change, because of X,Y, Z
2. If you show that X,Y,Z are invalid, I will find new arguments U,V,W
3. If you demolish U,V,W, I will say that even if climate change is happening, there is no evidence that it is anthropogenic because of A,B,C
4. A,B,C become D,E,F through the same process that produced U,V,W
5. When D,E,F fall, I will argue that there's no evidence that it will be harmful
6. When harm is shown, I will pass the buck to the next generation, assuming they will invent some whiz-bang technology to reverse the damage
7. Why, under libertarian philosophy, anyone in the future would undertake a massive program whose only benefits are social will remain unasked; presumably in the future Libertarians will remain a fringe minority

The scientific consensus on plate tectonics is about as old as I am. It's been around much longer than that, much like our understanding of the greenhouse effect. To certain generations of Americans, though, the Earth never moved. The geological revolution was a boon to oil and gas exploration, and the free market as a whole. If modern climate science had such a rosy picture to offer, would such an unfortunate gap have ever been opened in the last ten years between scientific consensus and public perception?

Carry On

No existential threat to the civilized world exists from fundamentalist terrorists. We do not call the madman Emperor, and we do not call the criminal Nemesis. Were terrorists able to threaten the existence of our values, the existence of our institutions of law, or even the lives of any great portion of us, they would not require the tools of cowardice. If Cheney, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin or O'Reilly will argue otherwise, let them do so, and let them stand against evidence. Fear will always be sold cheap by shameful men. Defend reason. Keep calm, and carry on.

Huebner's Six Rules of Mountaineering

1. Climb with passion.
2. No guts, no glory.
3. Expect dead ends.
4. Never turn your back on your partner.
5. Never look where you don't want to go.
6. There's always room on the rope for a person with honor.

Jim Huebner, as quoted in Roy H. Williams' Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.

More on the Gay Marriage Ban Referendum

You go up to Appleton; you get your hair cut. You see a "No on 1" sign down on the verge. You park, you put it back up next to the "Yes on 1" sign. The grass was just mowed. You figure maybe they both got knocked over by the mower and the Yes people are just more vigilant about getting their signs back up.

You drive back to 131. You see another "No on 1" sign down at the intersection. You park, you fix it. You figure, hey, we had some rain and wind, maybe they both went down and the Yes people are just more vigilant about getting their signs back up.

You learn better as you pass the sign at the intersection of route 17, which has been spray painted. Not just marked, either: Someone had a stencil. Looks like they bugged out halfway through though; it's just a big yellow overspray mess unless you look closely.

On the common -- in your hometown -- you find a "No on 1" sign down. The stakes have been pulled out of the ground. One's been stolen. You come back with a hammer. You put the sign back up next to the "Yes on 1" sign. You'd be happy to do this for the Yes signs as well, but none of them have been vandalized.

You go down to the town office, and register to vote. This is your town too.

A Question for the "Yes on 1" Campaign

What's to prevent individual teachers from discussing homosexual issues now?

I get it. You don't like gay people. You don't know any gay people. It's not that big a deal, in real life.

The fact remains that if I like a girl I have the right to marry her, without any "seperate but equal" rejiggering. How could I, as a decent person, deny that right to someone else?

(Question 1 is a Maine ballot initiative to outlaw gay marriage.)

Class in America: The "Good Schools" Myth

The day's favorite American euphemism for deliberate class stratification, "good schools," is back, this time from Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times. This one is doubly insidious because liberals are still comfortable saying it aloud. I bitchslapped Kristof's fellow white-flight New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell when he took this same call up a year ago, and since nothing's changed, I'll refer you to my post from that time, Malcolm Gladwell's Good Teacher/Bad Teacher Delusion.

Snip:

Don't blame students; don't blame parents; don't blame underfunded schools; don't blame distending class sizes, don't blame school funding being tied to local property taxes; don't blame artificial testing requirements devouring classroom time; don't blame required special education skewing dollar-per-student vs. results numbers wildly below magnet and parochial schools; don't blame the flight of your upper-middle class into homogenous neighborhoods.

...As We All Must

Darwin Swag

Intransigent Design

A discussion swirled up this week on 3 Quarks Daily over an item about scientists Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer withdrawing from BloggingHeads.tv after the site began including intelligent design creationists in its Science Saturday segments. The discussion was generally supportive of the scientists' decision not to support a platform that equates science with religion, with the exception of laudably non-anonymous Luke Lea of BornAgainDemocrats.com. My thoughts were as follows:

The scientific method can be applied to the study of anything that can be defined. It can't be applied to concepts whose definitions are constantly shifted around for the purpose of preventing science from examining them. We need to bear in mind the difference between a concept and a word game.

To present Intelligent Design uncritically -- and especially to give it equal time -- does a disservice to the public by equating it with science. I'm reminded of Dara O'Brian's skit about giving equal time to people who don't believe in outer space when NASA launches a satellite. Unless the Intelligent Design hypothesis can evolve into a falsifiable theory, it'll remain what it always has been -- a belief, comforting in its simplicity, but of precisely one cent less real world value than a lucky penny.

Mr. Lea responds, "Space toast: Space is an empirical concept, design isn't."

Luke: "Design" indicates a specific set of actions in 4-dimensional space. When I cut a board to size, I have designed it. When I measure once and cut wrong (sadly common), is the board still designed? What about if I find a use for it later? Indeed what if I find a board on the pile that's just the right size to begin with; is it "designed" for the purpose? While we're at is, how come trees are soft enough to be cut with metal blades, but hard enough to hold up an entire building?

It's a fun word game, but it's meaningless. The appeal of Intelligent Design creationism hinges on the common meaning of the word "design," but its philosophical assertions hinge on an invented cosmic special definition of the same word.

Design is a perfectly empirical concept, when one settles on a specific definition. It's only when ID's assertions come under attack that its proponents get "intelligent" and begin playing a definitional shell game.

And just to sate my own curiosity, is toast an empirical concept too?

Who Was John Galt?

At the bookstore, I'm always amused that not one of the many people who ask for Ayn Rand's books seem to have investigated how to pronounce her name. America has just come out of the largest-scale test of Randism since Hoover, with similar results. Hers is the Golden Age comic book of political philosophies: a glimpse into a shiny world without moral grayscales. It's fun, at a certain age, but most of us grow out of it.

For those who simply can't stomach complex political philosophies, this is a very frightening time, and its reflected in book sales. "How much is Common Sense?" a customer asked the other day, holding up a copy of Glenn Beck's book. "It's right there on the back, sir," replied my manager.

Ignore Me Please

• India: Many of the most beautiful women in the world. Young men sexually obsessed with their mothers and overweight middle-aged aunts.
• Japan: Many of the most beautiful women in the world. Feelings of sexual inadequacy widespead enough to spawn the harem genre and a nationwide Lolita complex.
• Brazil: Many of the most beautiful women in the world. Whole lot of fucking going on.

Score:

• India: 0
• Japan: 0
• Brazil: 1

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