John Derbyshire Gets It Right

Here's the moment that I've been waiting for: finding a conservative who isn't afraid to stray outside the proscribed areas usually inhabited by "conservatives" and to call cack-handed mendacity when he sees it.

So let me just introduce... John Derbyshire. And his article in the >gasp< National Review Online... "A Blood Libel on Our Civilization". Can you guess what it is? No, seriously... it's a review of Expelled (in all fairness, he hasn't actually seen it yet, by his own admission, but there's a vast trove [NB: not a "treasure trove"] of information out there from which to judge already). I wouldn't make this up. Take a look. If you're impatient, here's a key quote:

"No, Ben Stein is no crook. He must then be foolish; and that’s sad, because I now think less of a guy I once admired, and whom my friends admire. Life, it’s just one darn bubble bursting after another."

As readers may just have guessed, I'm not a natural conservative. To me, conservatism seems to be, in essence, the antithesis of seeking, probing, and testing the limits, looking for novelty, good or bad - to me, the latter descriptions are the essence of being progressive and liberal. Conservatism is often about standing still and looking backward, while progressive liberalism is about moving and looking forward. But at the same time, there are things that I respect about the conservative outlook - the feeling that the roots of culture and society should be given their due, the sense of the importance of history and precedent - and when that is the ground on which conservatives wish to meet, I'll certainly be there.

I think that it's important for conservatives and liberal progressives to be able to talk, seriously and civilly, without descending into name-calling and reputation-smearing shouting matches, and I know that there are conservatives who feel the same way. As liberal thinkers go, conservatives can play an important check and balance function - they can ask those questions which the traditional "devil's advocate" would ask, and make us examine our assertions and our certainties. And all of that, as far as I am concerned, is good and right and proper - it's part of a skeptical intellectual traditional.

What therefore bothers me (and I'm neither alone nor original in expressing this sentiment) is just how nasty the rhetoric has grown in recent years. Fostered, demonstrably, by the current American government and the neo-conservative and neo-Xian elements within and without it, the United States has continued its descent into divisiveness and incivility. I don't think that there is necessarily a "fault" to be assigned in that case, it just seems to have happened. Now, rather than pandering to the more unpleasant voices of the right (and, indeed, several unpleasant voices on the left), perhaps its time to find some common ground.

Which is where John Derbyshire's article comes in. Here is a man, writing for a conservative publication, who says things like this:

"Western civilization has many glories. There are the legacies of the ancients, in literature and thought. There are the late-medieval cathedrals, those huge miracles of stone, statuary, and spiritual devotion. There is painting, music, the orderly cityscapes of Renaissance Italy, the peaceful, self-governed townships of old New England and the Frontier, the steel marvels of the early industrial revolution, our parliaments and courts of law, our great universities with their spirit of restless inquiry.

"And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear."

Mr Derbyshire also endears himself to me for the parenthetical remark in this quote, which I think is absolutely priceless:

"This dishonesty showed up very soon after the creationists decided to don the mask of “alternative science” in the 1990s. A key episode was the Kunming conference of June 1999. In very brief — you can read the full story in Forrest and Gross’s Creationism's Trojan Horse (“A bad book, a very bad book,” shuddered the Discovery Institute’s Bruce Chapman when he saw it on my desk, like a vampire spotting a clove of garlic)..."

I have to be honest... nothing has put me in such a good mood for days as reading that. Check out the article for yourself, and consider that maybe, just maybe, things are not beyond all hope.

Which Science Is She All About?

My routine Google searches have gotten way ahead of me, so I was skimming over them this morning when I came across this short piece from the Scotsman, KT Tunstall's name all about impact.

To quote the relevant line from the story:

"The singer, 32, had previously said she changed her childhood name Katie because it 'reminded her of a buxom maid'.

However, she now says it is all to do with geology. She said songwriter Billy Bragg found a term called the 'KT Impact, which marks the start of the extinction of the dinosaurs'."

-- The Scotsman, 23 April 2008

I haven't heard any of KT Tunstall's music that I can recall, but I know that she produced an album called Eye to the Telescope a couple of years ago which was a sensation in Britain. Now, I'm wondering... apart from perhaps surveying a site from a great distance, or studying a distant planet, how do you do geology with a telescope? Or am I, perhaps, taking literalism a bit too far? I guess that I should just be glad of any positive references to science, and leave it at that.

I also find it amusing that she credits Billy Bragg with "finding" the term "K/T impact". As much as I adore the Bard of Barking's music, I have to say that I wasn't aware that the term had been lost!

Expelled and The Rape of Europa: Two Very Different Films (a Brief Discussion)

I have not yet been to see Expelled - I'm now planning to go tomorrow. On Sunday, we went to see The Rape of Europa instead, because I'm the sort of man who listens when his wife says: "you know, you could just go see that other film on your own..." It's not going to be her cup of tea, and she feels no love for Ben Stein or the Disco Institute crowd which otherwise might compel her to go. However, having seen the really quite excellent Rape of Europa, a few things have struck me in the comparison that I thought worth sharing.

First, I will state here and now that this is not my area of expertise in history, so if I get something expressly wrong, I apologise and will correct it when I'm made aware of any error. What is clear from the reading that I have done is that any claim that Darwin's theory led to any subsequent brutal, totalitarian régime had better be backed by some truly staggering evidence, and not merely the wishful thinking of film producers and the credulous gullibility of some cinema-goers.

Regarding these two films, what emerges clearly from Europa is, first, that the National Socialists in Germany of the 1920s and 1930s were as much interested in personal gain as anything else. This is attested by the vast art collection of Hermann Göring, and the grandiosity of Hitler's schemes for the rebuilding of Linz, his home town in Austria, as an imperial city, to be dedicated to the memory of Hitler himself and the cultural designs of the Third Reich. What clearly emerges, on the other hand, from Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed? Very little, apart from the somewhat obvious suggestion that the film title chosen by Premise Media, and Stein & Co., may in fact be self-fulfilling prophecy.

Despite not having seen Expelled yet (and that review will come after viewing it tomorrow), I've read an awful lot of the coverage about it, and I've seen a lot of awful trailers. And one thing that is very clear to me is this: the producers of this film are clearly intent on trying to compare a tested, predictive, and dare I say it, elegant scientific theory with... well, since it doesn't agree with their world view, what's the very worst thing that they can think of? Oh, yes, right. Germany under the Nazis. The massacres of Soviet civilians and the police state that engulfed the Soviet Union. In short, the worst things done by human beings to other human beings under the dubious guises of "progress", "nationalism", "idealism"... better lay those all at Darwin's door. Which is a childishly simple fallacy - it's a simple argument for simple minds.

In The Rape of EuropaHitler and the Nazi inner circle are portrayed as taking a very close interest in the arts and culture as a method by which to strengthen the bonds of unity which held wartime Germany together. At one point, the Fuhrer is depicted listening to a rehearsal of Wagner's Das Niebelungenlied at the Nüremburg Festival, and it is popularly accepted, at least, that Richard Wagner was the composer par excellence favoured officially by the Reich. Also pointed out in Europa is a possible motivation for Hitler's distaste for the Jews - the fact that Hitler was excluded from a place in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna by a panel of judges (who are called "mostly of Jewish extraction" in the film), who determined that his paintings were less than accomplished (as a side note, I find it interesting that both Hitler and another leader during the Second World War, Winston Churchill, were both painters, the difference being, it seems, that while Churchill's watercolours were printed in book form and can probably still be purchased today, Hitler's lie concealed in a museum, and will probably never be exhibited in view of potential public reaction). Hitler's envy of the exemplars of the artistic trends of the day led him to develop his own view of the "inferiority" of the "barbaric" art created by artists ranging from Egon Schiele to Vassily Kandinsky, and this envy was to be key to events that happened on the arts scene in a Germany increasingly drawn to war.

The national art propagated by Hitler in place of the speculative daubings and experiments of the modern art movement was very single minded in its focus. It was neo-Classical German, with an emphasis on the mythology which the Nazis were trying to build, of a single, superior, Germanic "master race". Other forms, newer, modern forms, were at the same time declared barbaric and valueless, and many were sold from Germany's national collections at fire-sale prices. Many more were simply subjected to fire, and much of Germany's modern artistic inheritance was simply burned for being "modern", "Slavic", or "Jewish". In the view of the Reich, though, the Jews were still useful for what they owned and accumulated, and the film recounts that often, it was possible for individual freedom to be bought for the price of a desirable piece of art; at least, this appears to have been true in the early days of the Reich. What does that say, therefore, about the "racial purification" imperatives of the Reich, "influenced by Darwinism"? It says nothing, other than that individuals were, as ever, corruptible and susceptible to their own greed.

Moreover, as the German army swept into the Netherlands, northern France, Poland, Italy, and Russia, a list of desired works of art was kept, guiding special units within the German army to those pieces desired for the eventual German National Museum of Art - something akin to the Louvre (and, if we're being honest, accumulated as spoils of war, in much the same way as the basis of the Louvre's collection). After the war, a limited number of American "monuments men", soldiers with knowledge of and background in art, were tasked with trying to put the collections back together, and unearthing secret Nazi caches of paintings. Some have yet to be recovered. In the case of the Louvre, the entire collection was packed and removed from Paris. The Hermitage was not so lucky, but still managed to save much of its priceless collection of Russian art.

It is hard, watching a film like The Rape of Europa, to conceive of something so grandiose and twisted. The question about the motives and actions of the Germans, after all else therefore becomes that of "why?", and it's not my place or intent to answer that here, except to suggest, very forcefully, that none of their motivations could be attributed to anything that seem even remotely Darwinian. This was yet another manifestation of the old prejudices which dated back to the earliest forced migrations of the European Jewry in the early Middle Ages. It was a manifestation of the thousands of threads of political and social, and yes, scientific thought which occupied the intellectual landscape of Germany after the Great War. But to put sole blame, or to endeavour to place the sole blame at Darwin's door is not only disingenuous, it is an outright lie.

In The Rape of Europa, we have a fascinating and sympathetic account of survivors of the war, told from the perspective of survivors, art historians, and the descendants of those who lost everything to flee with their very lives. In the midst of so much destruction, the fact that nations put the drive for art restitution at the top of their list says something positive about the human race, something unexpected. This is a film that you should see, with a story that you should know. To my mind, the Darwinian approach to evolutionary biology does much the same thing: it uplifts, it says this: "You are a product of the survival of genes expressed through random mutation. Your body is the product of materials which began their existence in the deaths of stars that shone long before the planet on which you stand ever formed. You are something special indeed." All the best of human experience, and all the worst, can be illuminated by the light shed on the mysteries of life by Darwin and his "dangerous idea".

That is not to say that it is patently impossible for there to have been any influence of Darwin's ideas on the thinking of the twisted minds behind the Reich. However, it seems quite clear that those ideas, Darwin's conception of the "struggle for existence" and the accretion of chance variation over time eventually yielding new species had nothing to do with what the Reich set in motion, with regard to the Gypsies, the Slavs, the Jews, or the mentally ill and physically handicapped, or indeed to their own political enemies, who were the first to be purged in the early 1930s, and all of whom suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany. From historian Richard J. Evans' magisterial book, The Coming of the Third Reich, I would direct attention to this quote:

"Borrowing ecclectically from Nietzsche, Langbehn, Darwin, Treitschke and other writers, and frequently vulgarizing heir ideas in the process, wrenching them out of context, or simplifying them to the point of unrecognizability, the Pan-Germans and their nationalist allies founded their ideology on a world-view that had struggle, conflict, 'Aryan' ethnic superiority, anti-semitism and the will to power as its core beliefs."

-- The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 48

Clearly, the justifications and rationalisations for purges and persecutions of human populations at any point in history have less to do with intellectual motives, which are always muddled, simplified, or non-sensical, and more to do with the political expediency required by a state. That much is as true today as it was eighty years ago.

I would also draw attention to Evans' section from the closing pages of the book, which I think merits being quoted in its entirety:

"The death of democracy in Germany was part of a much broader European pattern in the interwar years; but it also had very specific roots in German history and drew on ideas that were part of a very specific German tradition. German nationalism, the Pan-German vision of the completion through conquest in war of Bismarck's unfinished work of bringing all Germans together in a single state, the conviction of the superiority of the Aryan race and the threat posed to it by the Jews, the belief in eugenic planning and racial hygiene, the military ideal of a society clad in uniform, regimented, obedient and ready for battle - all this and much more that came to fruition in 1933 drew on ideas that had been circulating in Germany since the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Some of these ideas, in turn, had their roots in other countries or were shared by significant thinkers within them - the racism of Gobineau, the anticlericalism of Schönerer, the paganist fantasies of Lanz von Liebenfels, the pseudo-scientific population policies of Darwin's disciples in many countries, and much more. But they came together in German in a uniquely poisonous mixture, rendered all the more potent by Germany's pre-eminent position as the most advanced and most powerful state on the European Continent. In the years following the appointment of Hitler as Reich Chancellor, the rest of Europe, and the world, would learn just how poisonous that mixture could be."

-- The Coming of the Third Reich, p. 450-1

If proper historians can see pseudo-science for what it is, and recognise that the thoughts and faults and blatant stupidities of people claiming to follow in the footsteps of a great thinker, then certainly lesser historians should be able to do this as well, never mind members of the public at large. At the end of the day, you can say all that you like that it smacks of Darwin, but if you say that, it appears to me that you're revealing your ignorance not only of what Darwin said, but of what has been built on that framework since he said it.

So if you don't like evolutionary thought, if you shy away from the notion of common descent, that's certainly your individual privilege. But your individual biases and neuroses, your desire to equate it with the worst things in 20th century history, never mind that your understanding of those events probably derives from something of as modest a level of sophistication as a wartime Bugs Bunny cartoon - those views are not simply suspect, they are demonstrably false.

50 Random Things Meme

So with thanks to my Dear Wife (I think that "thanks" is the word that I want), I will now complete this particular meme of random questions. As for tagging, I herby tag anyone else silly enough to read this list and think: "well, I've got an hour to kill..."

1. Do you like bleu cheese? -- I prefer other cheeses, like a nice Stilton or a good Wensleydale, but I'll have Roquefort or even the basic "bleu" cheese, in a pinch.


2. Have you ever smoked herion? -- No. Ludicrous question. Next.


3. Do you own a gun? -- No, but I have a slightly scary Swiss bayonnet intended for geology field work.


4. What flavour do you add in your drink at Sonic? -- Vodka to orange, so I can have a Sonic screwdriver.


5. Do you get nervous before Doctor visits? -- Yes, because I never know what he's going to say or where in time and space that TARDIS will go next.


6. What do you think of hot dogs? -- Their owners should really provide them with adequate water.


7. Favourite Christmas song? -- 'A Holly Jolly Christmas' by Burl Ives


8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? -- Grapefruit juice. Possibly with vodka.


9. Can you do push-ups? -- Yes, but not too many.


10. Can you do a chin up? -- Probably not without some practise.


11. What is your favorite piece of jewelry? -- I only ever wear a wedding ring, so I'll go with that.


12. Favorite hobby? -- Gardening. Or collecting books.


13. Have you ever been in a car wreck? -- Yes. A single-person effort, involving my car, a patch of ice, and a fire hydrant.


14. Do you have ADD? -- I'm sorry, I was miles away. What was the question?


15. What is one trait you love about yourself? -- My problem-solving ability (when it works, and doesn't create more, larger, scarier problems).


16. Middle Name? -- Griffin


17. Name three thoughts at this exact moment? -- Er... I should have gotten more accomplished today, I wonder what's due back at the library, and have I set the recorder for 'Top Gear'?
    
18. Name three things you bought yesterday? -- A bottle of water, beer, and the premise that the new Indiana Jones film will live up to expectations almost two decades in the making.


19. Name three beverages which you regularly consume? -- Water, tea, beer.


20. Name a current worry? -- Living up to my end of the several bargains in which I am currently involved.


21. Name a current hate, loathing, or dislike? -- The American political system (two year election campaigns for the Presidency? You've got to be eff-ing kidding. Three months, tops, and stop your bloody whinging.)


22. How did you bring in the New Year? -- I can't entirely remember, so it must have been scintillating.


23. Where would you like to travel? -- I'd really like to get back to Europe. I don't particularly care where in Europe. Or the Galapagos Islands. Or the Burgess Shale formation.


24. Name three people that will complete this? -- Three? I can barely come up with one. Er... Mumblety Peg Jack, Pirate Jim, and Oliver the Mole. Anyone else?


25. Do you own slippers? -- Yes. Chthulu slippers. They're great, and green, with eyes and tentacles, and I like to get them out and wear them round the house and say: "Chthulu Ry'leh" in a weird voice, but I think that GHR has hidden them from me.


26. What shirt are you wearing? -- A little custom-tailored number that I picked up in the Götterdammerung Strasse in Nuremburg, before the war, when the world was young and all seemed bright with promise. Or my Boulevard Brewery sweatshirt. Can't be bothered to look just now.


27. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? -- No. I realise that they are supposed to be luxurious, but I think they just increase your chances of randomly falling out of bed.


28. Can you whistle? -- Yep. You just put your lips together and blow.


29. Would you be a pirate? -- Yes. How am I going to find three people to answer these questions without a press gang and a parrot?


30. What songs do you sing in the shower? -- Mainly Bulgarian shepherds' laments, or the occasional bit of Soft Cell.


31. Favourite girls name? -- Amanda, Jane, Laura, and Ginger, of course.


32. Favourite boys name? -- Spanner, Totem, Microphone.


33. What is in your pocket? -- Who are you, Bilbo Baggins?


34. Last thing that made you laugh? -- Video of David Tennant decrying his time around the race track on Top Gear, half a second slower than Billie Piper's.


35. Best bed sheets as a child? -- I had a set of Star Wars sheets that I loved. I wonder if they're still around?


36. Worst injury you've ever had? -- I took a thrust of irony to the ribs not long ago. It made it impossible to stand for weeks.


37. Do you love where you live? -- In many ways I do. It's an old house, with old house challenges, and I'd prefer to live in a real small town or village, but the town has some of the charm, just without the commensurate village shops and conveniences.


38. How many TV's do you have in your home? -- Two.


39. Who is your loudest friend? -- Probably Mickey the Megaphone. Can't think how he got that name.


40. How many dogs do you have? -- My wife has a dog, I do not. Prefer cats, really.


41. Does someone have a crush on you? -- Not that they've bothered to tell me about. Probably for the best.


42. What is your favorite book? -- Currently, it's Elmer Gantry, by Sinclair Lewis.
    
43. What is your favorite candy? -- Jelly Babies


44. What song do you want played at your funeral? -- "I'm the Urban Spaceman" by the Bonzo Dog Band. Other than that, I probably won't care.


45. What is your favorite sports team? -- I don't really have one. I enjoy watching baseball and cricket, and that's about it.


46. What were you doing at 12:00 a.m. this morning? -- Contemplating the next phase of my evil plan.


47. What was the first thing you thought when you woke up? -- Is there a squirrel in my closet? (long story)


48. What do you sleep in? -- A bed. I'm not one of those nouveau hammock types.


49. What is your favorite all time movie? -- The Lavender Hill Mob with Alec Guinness.


50. If you could do one thing over in your life what would it be? -- Do several different degrees at university (geology, biology - anything science-based).

Well, there you have it. A list of random questions. Some of them answered without, perhaps, the full gravity that they were due. Next victim, please.

Two Days in the Park

Originally, this was meant to be two posts, but I've decided to economise this morning.

Saturday was the annual Parkville Brew Fest, where local breweries bring out their ales for our delectation and general amusement, and to benefit the Parkville Main Street Association. This was our second year going, and we were met by two anonymous friends there (well, I met them, GHR was detained at a baby shower and arrived late, having escaped in good time). In order to ensure their anonymity, their picture has been replaced by a picture of two complete strangers, at right. Pay them no mind.

The Brew Fest was held under a big tent in English Landing Park, complete with about two dozen local breweries in attendance. There was live music (a band which, happily, had several songs by the Kinks in their repertoire), food, and a broad mix of people, none of whom particularly annoyed me this year. As I grow older, I seem to have less difficulty with crowds - I used to have a distinct dislike for them in my twenties. Perhaps, though, my moderate mood could have been attributed to the quite near proximity of a considerable number of local breweries, and their products. Local favourite Boulevard Brewing Company was present, as was what is probably my all-time favourite, the Free State Brewery from Lawrence, Kansas. Also represented were several other breweries, including McCoy's Public House and Parkville's own Power Plant.

It was a fairly balmy day, and after we had drunk moderately (hard to do otherwise, as samples are provided in a four ounce glass which you have filled to sample at the various tables under the tent), we capped off the afternoon with an early supper at the newly-opened Japanese steak house just over the road, past the as-yet-unopened farmer's market, which in warmer months sells jams, honey, and farm-fresh produce. All in all, a thoroughly satisfactory and pleasant day.

Sunday morning, GHR (as I sometimes call the Dear Wife) and I were awakened by an impertinent feline who seemed to feel that she needed food. This was fine, as after a brief discussion, we elected to follow through with our plan for the day, and set off again for a walk... around the same park.

Parkville is a town situated on a bend in the Missouri River just to the northwest of Kansas City, and presumably there was once a landing stage or boat dock on the flood plain which stands opposite the higher-placed Park University. Now known as English Landing Park, it still floods routinely, but it is anchored by beautiful tall trees, some, at a guess, between around one hundred fifty feet high. There is a walking track, and benches face the river, which on warmer summer days make them an ideal place to sit and cool off after a quick canter around the two mile trail which encircles the park proper.

Although the course is not difficult at all (indeed, it's almost entirely flat), it's an excellent outing if you just want to get a few miles in. We did about four and a half in total, partly to break in one of the pairs of hiking boots that I plan to take on the Montana trip, if only for casual wear.

Spring, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is finally beginning to be evident in this part of the country. Our stroll around the track held evidence of that in plenty, including a plane tree bursting with leaves and seed pods, a flowering cherry, and the slightly bedraggled hangers-on from the first round of spring flowers. Given the circumstances of the past few months, I've been particularly eager to get outside and do things again, outdoor things, digging in the dirt and clearing up the back garden sorts of things. I've also missed walking, and cycling, although were I more dedicated, I'd be able to just bundle up and get out in the cold regardless. Perhaps next year.

For the end of the walk, we took the west loop of the track further along the river, down by the channel dredger that has been migrating up and down this section of the Missouri for a few weeks now. Round the corner and back toward the shelters, what should we find but the new nature trail that we had heard about. After a quick conference, we decided that perhaps, this time, it would be best to give it a miss until another week-end. So that will have to be another pleasure for another day.

We crossed the stream which leads down to the river and made our way back to the parking lot. By this time our walk was drawing to a close, and the sun was beginning to break through the clouds, with patches of blue visible through the grey. We had out-run the threat of rain, and it was time for breakfast.

Friday's Lesson: Recycling Is Good...

... particularly if you keep up with it with some degree of regularity.

As you will notice from the illustration, it should be clear that I have not been keeping up with it. I last went at the very beginning of March. Our small town does not yet have the desirable kerb-side recycling, so we are left with the options of (1) just throwing everything away, or (2) taking them to the nearest recycling collection point, a little over eleven miles away. Option 1 seems fraught with some... shall we say, "moral complexities"? So, yes, on Friday I made the twenty-two mile round trip, but it strikes me as entirely justified. In the "ideal community" model that periodically plays out in my head, convenient and easy recycling and reuse is a common facet, crucial to ensuring that a lot of pointless waste isn't created. Again, though, I'm probably just something of a pessimistic idealist.

At any rate, here are some small points that I have learned about our consumption of packaged goods:

1. Packaged foods in cardboard containers are the bane of our existence.


2. Our newspaper consumption has dropped considerably, except for the free local ones which we can't stop having delivered, apparently, without intervention from some variety of secretive, anti-newspaperite society.


3. My beer consumption is not nearly as embarassing as I might previously have suspected.


4. The back porch (well, more of an airlock, really) is much tidier and less frightening after the recycling has gone.


5. We go through a lot of Chipotle Tabasco sauce. Roughly two bottles a month. Go figure.

In other, related news: the growing rumours of food crises, already accompanied by rising prices and, in some places by public unrest and rioting, are hopefully no more than a momentary blip on the world economic radar. Whatever is really happing, the news was covered in two markedly different ways by The Daily Show (and the Colbert Report) last week, while being discussed previously (and more soberly, if alarmingly) on NPR's Marketplace programme a week and a half earlier.

It's hard to know how to react to this, except to keep working at conserving (and not wasting) food, money, and time. The US has been in a privileged position in the world for a long time, and it doesn't always appear that the behaviour exhibited has been commensurate with the responsibility conveyed along with that privilege. At this point, I can only hope that my periodic pessimism about the state of the world is unreasonable and based on incomplete information. I can hope for a quick resolution to the problems of poverty, starvation, and all of their accompanying hosts, and for people to see sense about the problems of inequities around the world. You can't help where you're born. And just because you happen to be born into less-fortunate circumstances, rather than drawing some lucky golden ticket, you shouldn't have to play silly buggers with big global capitalism just to survive. That many people around the world do seems to fly in the face of those basic human dignities and rights which are so often adscribed to foetuses (no matter where they be) in certain circles in America. Curiously, though, once the gestation is complete, those who spoke the loudest in defence of the unborn oddly tend to wash their hands of the whole matter, as though it's no longer their responsibility.

And I can also hope, to end on a lighter note, that a certain burrito restaurant continues to have access to sufficient rice too, without waste. Otherwise, our private Monday tradition of "burritos, guacamole, and Top Gear" might come to a sad and much-lamented halt.

Really, we only watch to see Clarkson and Hammond tease James May mercilessly. And to see James May driving really quite slowly indeed. And dare I mention the wanton destruction of BBC property? Good times.

Music Meme - I Want to Play Too!

Courtesy of the Ridger over at The Greenbelt, here's a little fun for a Saturday morning. It's a music thread, and here are the rules, with my special case modifications (see below):

1. Start your mp3 player.


2. Copy out the first line(s) of the first twenty-five songs that play, no matter how embarrassing they might be.


3. Post the list. Invite people to submit their guesses.


4. You may not search any internet resource for the lyrics.


5. Correctly guessed items will be struck through with their song titles and artists revealed. Correctly guessed titles or artists missing the other vital component will be italicised to indicate partial accuracy.


6. To ensure fairness, audiobooks, recordings of radio programmes, opera and classical chorus are excluded. Everything else is fair game.


7. Despite the cover image from Welsh sensations SFA, there are no songs in Welsh on the list. Nor any in French. I would have put them on, but they simply didn't come up in the shuffle.

Without further messing about, then, here's my list:

1. "So, what have you done, you're caught by the river, you're coming undone..."


2. "What a dream I had: pressed in organdy..." - For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her - Simon & Garfunkel


3. "Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know: it's serious..." - Girlfriend in a Coma - The Smiths - from the album Strangeways, Here We Come


4. "Go on do what you've got to do. You've got your dreams I've got mine too..."


5. "You don't have to look at me, you don't have to smile at me..."


6. "What's her name today? What's her name today? She could be anyone..."


7. "(I am vision, I am sound...) Get me something to believe in..."


8. "Woke up this morning and it seemed to me, that every night turns out to be..."


9. "Ain't it fascinating the difference between those who have, You know there's those who make it and there's those who never may..."


10. "Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill. He jumped out the window cause he couldn't sit still..."


11. "I saw you taping thunder from your balcony, Saving the sounds, Don't trust your memory..."


12. "Fame throwa pass out the gold, The diamond watch the last reward..."


13. "Blind spot of a lifetime this litter, Pretty fingers on the phone, Nonviolent grace this religion, No one wants to be alone..."


14. "We used to go out nightly, to the armoury..."


15. "Shine on, shine your lights on me, in all of my life, so that much more I see..."


16. "Dirty old river, must you keep rolling, flowing into the night..."


17. "Something in you caused me to take a new tact with you; you were going through something I had just about scraped through..."


18. "I've got a word or two to say about the things that you do..." - Think for Yourself - The Beatles - Rubber Soul


19. "Irma waits by the window, Vaguely looking down at her socks"


20. "The high street shops are boarded up and the terrace it is fenced in..."


21. "Once, in royal David's city stood a lonely cattle shed..." - Christmas Song - Jethro Tull - from the album Living in the Past


22. "Brought up in a world of changes, part time cleaner in a holiday flat..."


23. "Worry about it later: we couldn't resist the risk..."


24. "Darkest of night, With the moon shining bright "


25. "Primal, evil, what am I? Tongue-tied 'til the day I die..."


26. "I attack with love, pure bug beauty, I curl my lips and crawl up to you " - Company in My Back - Wilco - from the album A Ghost Is Born

Have fun - I'd forgotten that some of this stuff was in my library, so there were some welcome surprises (and some groans of dismay) for me too! Bonus points if you can name the album. Some of these are clearly giveaways, so that should help. Responses in the comments, if you're up for it...

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EDIT: I seem to have gone one over. Call it a bonus.

Worlds Without End

I've stumbled across this recording on YouTube, of all places - here I thought that it was exclusively the domain of stupid pet tricks, drunken collegiates, and Premise Media*. But no - here's something really very cool.

I'm a huge fan of James Burke's writing and his television efforts. His latest book, American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked., is a fascinating look at American history - not bad for a man who is seventy-two this year. At any rate, in the interests of improving your moods and minds, here is the final episode of his 1985 series, The Day the Universe Changed, "Worlds Without End", which is scandalously unavailable on DVD as far as I'm aware. It is, however, sometimes to be found in libraries on VHS, if you're more traditional in your viewing habits.

In light of some of the manifestly ignorant things that are currently being bandied back and forth and called "science", Burke's eloquence and passion is a delight. His work was deeply formative on my thinking about history and science as a child, and I wish he'd get back into television today - he's sorely needed.

The YouTube version of Episode 10 is posted in five parts: links below:

Episode 10, Part 1

Episode 10, Part 2

Episode 10, Part 3

Episode 10, Part 4

Episode 10, Part 5

Did you enjoy it? Then check out the links to After the Warming, Burke's 1990-ish look at what might be the future of global climate change (which sadly didn't come to fruition as he hopefully predicted) and Connections on YouTube as well - or better still, purchase it and encourage the powers that be to release The Day the Universe Changed on DVD soon!

With thanks and much appreciation to YouTube user JamesBurkeFan - that's a tremendous public service that you're rendered - thanks!

---

* Yes, that is intended to be hyperbole.

The Pleasure of Morning Walks

I hope that it's a mark of restored health that, this morning, when the Dear Wife was putting on her shoes in preparation for her early morning walk (and here we're talking about a quarter past five in the morning, so clearly this is a cause to which she is dedicated), I decided, on a whim, to accompany her. Of course, the whim should have bowed to sense for a moment and instructed me to put on proper socks and shoes rather than sandals, but never mind that.

It was surprisingly warm this morning, if weather forecasts are to be trusted (which often they are not, as it appears that there are far too many variables which influence the darts game that is popular meteorology), the 71 degrees at 6am will be the high temperature. It was also still quite dark, which only impacts two short spans of our walk along what still survives of the original country roads - the rest have been suburbanised almost without our noticing. But there was a warm wind which made the going quite pleasant, if difficult to hear conversation at times.

I like being out where there aren't a lot of other people about, if for no other reason than that it is possible to observe things more closely without concerning yourself too greatly with traffic. This is why I used to like spending the family Thanksgiving holiday in the small town where my grandmother lived - walking those brisk, quiet streets on Thanksgiving morning, with the sharp tang of burning leaves lingering in the air and a dusting of crystalline frost on the ground was my version of a happy, empty world. This morning was certainly different, and the changing seasons bring their own novelties at which to marvel and be amazed.

An odd howl cut through the wind, seeming to be followed by a chorus of barks. The Dear Wife wondered if it could be a coyote or a wolf. At first, I thought that there had been no wolves or coyotes in this area for a very long time, but a quick search produced an article from 1910 about a man in Springfield being eaten by wolves. Yes, almost one hundred years ago, and that doesn't seem to be the norm today (one hardly ever hears of people being consumed by the local fauna in the American middle west), and I'd be surprised if there were wolves in any number, although we have seen bobcat tracks along our walking route, so there are some larger carnivores still roaming out there. More likely, though, it was simply a dog. And anyway, Springfield is another country, they do things differently there.

There's a point every year when, no matter how observant I have tried to be, Spring is suddenly present. That's how it was this morning. Everywhere, the trees were budding, which could be seen under the street lamps. Flowers already in bloom were mere light smudges in the intermittent darkness, but by the time we were two-thirds of the way along our route, the light was growing. Human eyes didn't evolve for night vision, but rather colour, so until the sun finally began to break through the overcast sky to the east, all of the shades of light were heavily and unnaturally blue. Busy, foolish, unruly birds were calling and chattering - more of them than I could identify by ear. At one point, several deer bounded away along the treeline by a farm. Something was crashing through the wood on the other side of the road, at one point, seemingly down by a stream - probably still more deer, as I imagine that any bobcat or other predator would be quieter. I'm sure that we were watched by numerous other creatures which I didn't see, but all that I know for certain is that our quiet conversations were apparently too much of an intrusion for several irritable dogs.

The last mile or so of our route took us back into a subdivision, a new neighbourhood where nature has been beaten into retreat and replaced, largely, with thick lawns, the sort which could never survive without constant attention and chemicals of varying levels of environmental lethality. We usually discuss the new houses, generally in terms of mocking their unrelenting sameness, but this morning we had other subjects for discussion. As places to live go, there are worse, I am sure, but I would have wished a bit more attention to retaining features of the local environment (the building firm did keep the stream and some of the trees lining it, so that is something), putting in a proper walking trail, and perhaps building more sensible homes generally, rather than the cookie-cutter variety celebrated, until very recently, by "custom" home builders. Perhaps the end of the current economic fiasco, the hopefully inevitable upswing, will be dominated by still more green building being demanded of builders by consumers. Just a thought, but, when walking along those "perfect" pavements, that's where my thoughts go.

It took us less than an hour to do the nearly three-mile circuit, which put us home around half-past six. I suppose that, were I not a better person, I might be somewhat smug at having gotten out and done something so early. As it is, I'm just glad that, for once, I managed to wake up and join in the expedition. Somehow, being up early and getting in a good, head-clearing walk makes the day seem longer, and fuller.

Of course, there's something to be said for staying in bed, too.

Catching Up

The nice thing about having a blog that isn't high-traffic (yet) is that I can have a day or two off, if necessary, say, for a mysterious stomach ailment (truly, truly, the most miserable of times, let me tell you). It does also mean, though, that I fall several days behind on my reading, research, and posting schedule, which does not make for a happy bunny.

As I won't have time to get to it today, most likely, I should reassure those faithful four or five of you that I have several posts in the pipeline, I just need to get my writing done. Thursday's a busy day for me anyway, so possibly look for things on Friday (before I begin - weather permitting - the lawn and garden extravaganza), including several new reviews over at my other home, Science Books Reviewed, where I'll be reviewing Natalie Angier's The Canon and the three loosely science-related Politically Incorrect Guides.

Want a preview of those reviews in advance? Well, let's just say that one is very, very good. And the other is rubbish. And I'll leave you to guess which is which.

Earth Day, 2008: Does the Battle Start Now?

Firstly, a confession: I haven't always been of an ecological mindset.

Granted, I was too much of a good liberal to ever be completely taken over to the dark side. I never coveted or drove an SUV (at least until the hybrids came out), for example. I don't think that I was egregiously wasteful, but I can think back to a lot of food and drink that I've thrown away over the years, and it doesn't always add up to a rosy picture of my life as an ecologically-minded sort.

Things are a bit different now. My wife and I are ardent recyclers, which means that, among other things, we only put things out for the dustmen to collect every three weeks or so - it takes that long to fill our solitary blue wheelie bin. We have two smaller cars, one of them a recent Prius hybrid - the difference between filling the tank on a Prius and a Camry is noticable, aside from the difference in tank volume. We've joined a community supported agriculture scheme - another step in reducing our overall carbon footprint. And we're working on keeping our house and garden in such a condition that we aren't indulging excessively in resources, as I've discussed elsewhere. In the case of the garden, we're trying our hands at growing some vegetables, on a practise basis, to see if we can do it on a larger scale, without excessive indulgence in harmful chemicals.

I'd have to say that these are basically good things to have done, without wanting to seem self-congratulatory. Still, in the face of those successes, there are always failures... or, at least, places in which we could make improvements. Energy efficiency for an old house would be a start, as be would rationalising and minimising our travel, to make it as efficient as possible. I try not to drive on errands unless I have at least two to complete, although, living where we do, that simply isn't always possible.

But when you start thinking this way, one of the interesting things is that you begin to notice just how much rubbish people leave behind. The more that you walk, the further that you drive, the more unpleasant things look to be. Much like the isolated Pacific island beaches littered with the detritus of "civilisation", humans as a species are just as ham-fisted when it comes to looking after things closer to home. In general, obviously. Some people care very much. More should.

We have plans for our area, too. We've interested the children in the idea of walking along a moderately liter-strewn country road and picking up all of the plastic, aluminium, and glass that we can find for recycling. We'd also like to try to interest the town in putting signs along that same route, something along the order of "no littering - area monitored by CCTV", just to see if it would help. And I'd like to think that the improvements that we are making to the garden are going to be appreciated by our neighbours and everyone who walks along our pleasant little streets. So, yes, on the whole, there's still work to be done.

Living a life with a minimal environmental impact is a full-time job, and we both have jobs already (although my collected activities amount to probably less than full-time, that is another point for another day). There's always more that can be done, yes, but there's also the question of making the time to do it. However, given the problem, and given the indisputable fact that despite all of the extra-solar planets, we haven't found another Earth, it doesn't just seem like "a good idea" to look after things.

It seems, rather, to be absolutely essential.

Food for thought. In the meantime, remember: Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle.

Montana, Ho! (part 2)

Preparations advance for the Montana fossiling expedition in July, locally under the auspices of the HMS Beagle. I've now met the man who actually holds the permit, issued to a St Louis museum, and asked a few questions. At this point, it sounds as though the "management" component of the trip may not be that onerous, which means that I'll get to do what I'm really interested in doing - namely, learning about and hunting for dinosaur fossils. Apart from that, the Dear Wife and I will get a good road trip out of it, which we both typically enjoy.

I'm not really overstating when I suggest that this could be an excellent way in which to gain some experience at digging dinosaurs in the field, because that's exactly what I'm hoping to get out of it.

In the meantime, I will have to read through the relevant sections of Roadside Geology of Montana, and the book Hell Creek, Montana: America's Key to the Prehistoric Past, by Lowell Dingus, which tells the story of some of the colourful characters who might be found in the only bar in the town of Jordan, and of the area itself.

In the meantime, there's hiking to do in preparation (with a pack, to ensure that I'm going to be ready for the more arduous walking in the summer heat), reading, and practise identification of bone fragments in situ. I don't want to be the eager amateur who steps on the critical bit of the skeleton and mangles it beyond all recognition, so these things seem prudent.

In the meantime, it's probably a good moment to track down my old rock hammer, and clean it up, especially as I've promised my son that we would take a drive out to some closer location and spend the day looking for fossils, since he's too young to make the Montana trip. He seemed so heartbroken when I had to tell him that he couldn't go, it was the least that I could do.

The Compulsion to Write

Now that I've been at this writing lark almost full-bore for a month or so, it's becoming harder and harder to imagine a day of not doing it. I think that I might have inadvertently become addicted. Damn.

So... what news today? Er... we slept through the earthquake. Which makes me feel a bit of a fool, even if it was 388 miles away (give or take, that's highway travel, not "as the crow flies"). Some people, including my son's first grade teacher, claimed to have felt it and been woken by it. Considering that they're further west still than where we live, and that the effective distance at which it was supposed to have been felt was four hundred miles or so, I'm finding that difficult to believe, but not outside of the realms of possibility (time to contact the Kansas Geological Survey, I guess, to check my facts).

Thanks and welcome also to visitors and commenters who have been appearing of late, and to those who have blogrolled me. I'll be updating my own list again shortly, so if I've missed you, let me know. I've been surprised, quite honestly, at the number of people who have hit this blog (which I've gleaning from Sitemeter, and hello especially to readers around the world - welcome, bienvenue, benvenutto, wilkommen, hi there, et cetera), and I'm (almost) always pleased at comments, to which I'll response eventually. So let me know if you're enjoying what I'm writing. Feedback is always (well, nearly always) welcome.

Today was the stressful preparation for a "family meal", with extended family who turned up to celebrate the recent birthday. It was, in truth, more of a "high tea", or at least, a "middle to lower-middle tea". But a terrific walk in lovely weather afterwards was reward and release after the stress of cookery and cleaning.

And, finally, last night at dinner, we were talking about what the twins wanted to be when they grew up. I know that these are provisional, conditional answers, and probably nowhere near to what will finally happen, but when my son said "a marine biologist" and my daughter said "an astronomer", I have to admit that I felt rather proud.

Especially when compared to the fact that I didn't decide that I wanted to be an astronomer until I was at least ten. Not that it panned out, but that's my fault, not the fault of the dream.

Doomsday?

Much as the Disco Institution might like to think that this, this day marks the death knell for intellectual liberty in the United States, with the release of their birth pang-ridden child, Expelled, it just isn't that likely. No matter what the cast of clowns behind the film might hope, it's just silly to expect that people who have open, querying minds will be swayed by what promises to be a delightful hour and a half. I can't get away to see it until Monday at the earliest - hopefully it won't be gone already.

Sure, we have a long way to go. There's a lot of educating that needs to be done, still, if only forty-odd percent of Americans can't tell the difference between wishful thinking and a hundred and fifty years worth of research and study. We also have a long way to go in terms of forging the chains of evidence which will eventually yield the impenetrable mail of near-certainty. Fossils to find, problems to solve: work to do. No worries or frets, though. As long as we aren't side-tracked by the clowns juggling at the roadside, trying to tempt us into error and foolishness with their creepily-painted faces and silly noses, all shall be well.

So, Doomsday? Not really... although a certain nasal voice wouldn't have far to go to be reminiscent of a Cyberman...

Thursday Book Brief: The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing

Not a lot of time to go maundering on this morning, as I'm due to be somewhere, so just a quick note of a newly released title that you, also, may have had your eye on: The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing. Edited by Richard Dawkins, this book contains essays by a diverse group of scientists working during the last one hundred years, writing on their subjects and interests, and looks like an excellent introduction not only to science, but to the art of good science writing.

Whether or not it's to defuse the idea that he's somehow egomaniacal (a charge which I have heard made in the past, in every case I assume that it's the inability to tell the difference between talking and actually having something to say), Professor Dawkins notes that he has - interestingly - won the argument with his editor, and refused to include any of his own writing in the volume. Before you ask, though, yes, Stephen Jay Gould is represented. (If you're looking for short pieces by Professor Dawkins as an introduction to the longer works, A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love is still be your best bet.) In the meantime, you can enjoy writing by everyone from George Gaylord Simpson to Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein to Brian Green, Stephen Jay Gould to Stephen Hawking, and Primo Levi to Richard Feynman, and so many more. Granted, these are introductions, intended for the general reader, but I think that they will be genuinely inspiring, and yes, if I have to shill for something, it will be a book like this, every time.

Sweetly, and as I think he has for all of his recent books, he thanks Lalla Ward for her helpful contributions and her ear for the English language... which is a lovely coincidence, as I just broke down and bought Destiny of the Daleks yesterday, which is her first appearance as Romana, the Doctor's Time Lady travelling companion. So you can guess how my next free hour and half or so will be spent...

Panic at the Disco

When you read heavily in the manufactroversey over evolution, certain warning markers always seem to appear. For instance, when you read an article by someone who appears to have only a tenuous grip on reality, do some research into their background, and find that they're a "fellow" of the Discovery Institute. Scratch a wingnut, and it's Disco underneath: all flares, medallions, and regrettable hairstyles.

So when this article appeared in one of my routine searches for new articles that I might enjoy, and I took a look, my research reflex kicked in. Three things tripped the alarm wire: (1) it appeared in the American Spectator, that less-cuddly cousin of Boris Johnson's outfit in the UK, (2) the article title: "Darwin and the Nazis" - a recent sub-discipline of the manufactorversey over evolution, and (3) the fact that the author, Richard Weikart, is listed as a fellow of the Disco Institute (no, I don't link to them, here's the Google link to get you there). Here's Dr Weikart's page at the University of California - Stanislaus. Interestingly, it doesn't appear to have been updated for a while, and doesn't mention his honorarium with the Disco. That could just be laziness, though - I have web pages out there that haven't been touched for five years or more.

My background in history helps me out here somewhat, but not a lot. Unlike some people, I didn't relish the study of the Second World War and the horrors perpetrated therein. And I haven't read Dr Weikart's book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany yet, and interestingly, it isn't shelved by any library in the Kansas City metropolitan area according to my searches of a few moments ago (is it worth going through inter-library loan? I like my library - I'd hate them to think I was a nutter). But fortunately, he has provided a page of references for us to peruse to further develop our opinion of the book. It looks like the standard run of scholars, and people who could be checked into, but seem largely innocuous... but wait! Just over half way down the page, we find a tell-tale clue:

"The philosophy that fueled German militarism and Hitlerism is taught as fact in every American public school, with no disagreement allowed. Every parent ought to know this story, which Weikart persuasively explains."

--Phillip Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of Darwin on Trial and Reason in the Balance

Without wanting to flog the "guilt by association" horse too much... er, excuse me? Since when did Mr Johnson's expertise now extend into history? Was it at the same time as when he became an expert on all of biology, cosmology, and the mind of the unknowable Almighty, before, or after?*

The short version of Dr Weikart's article for the American Spectator is, yes, a rehashing of the arguments put forward in other quarters, and, of course, in our upcoming lovefest, Expelled. It's ironic, to me, that the worst thing that "intelligent design" proponents can come up with, in response to the overwhelming weight of the refutation piled onto them by scientists from around the world, is to say: "yeah... er, well... well you're like the Nazis! And so was your mother! And your old man Darwin too!"

It's all very primary school playtime, isn't it?

But, quickly, before I lose the will to live, a quick look at the article itself... here's how it opens:

"Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and some other Darwinists are horrified that the forthcoming documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, will promote Intelligent Design to a large audience when it opens at over a thousand theaters nationwide on April 18. Ironically, their campaign to discredit Ben Stein and the film confirms its main point, which is to expose the persecution meted out by Darwinists to those daring to criticize Darwinian theory."

Really, Dr Weikart? Is it the competition and criticism to which they object? Or, perhaps, is it the whole dishonest endeavour, as documented on Expelled Exposed (a site which John West immediately claimed was slapdash and ineffectual, or words to that effect - you can look it up, if you want). Is it the whole plot to garner interviews under false pretenses, and then cobble them together into some sort of martyrdom story-cum-paranoid delusion, with a washed up eyewash peddler as it's droning, annoying voice? I wonder.

I've said this before. Others far, far more intelligent than me have said it before: criticise evolutionary biology. Formulate new theories and corollaries. Imagine new mechanisms, then go out and proclaim that they explain key problems with the theory as we understand it now... but do it when you have the data. Do it when you have the research. Do it when you have a body of evidence, from which you construct a theory of your own, and that theory allows you to make predictions. Do it when you've taken the time to actually take the time. That's how science works. Not just because you're a maths student and biology doesn't make sense to you. Not because you're a lawyer in his declining years trying to shore up his legacy. Not due to the fact that you're a small, vile attack mouse who makes hit-and-run attacks on the reputations of others who are trying to do the work. When you do those latter things, someone's going to notice. And they will call you on it, and in the end, you'll be just another embarrassing footnote in history.

Weikart goes on to lay out six points about "Darwinism" which he claims were necessary conditions to the rise of the Third Reich. I'll quickly just touch on two (I just picked off the easy ones here: if I have time, I'll get to the others later.):

"2. Darwin denied that humans had an immaterial soul. He and other Darwinists believed that all aspects of the human psyche, including reason, morality, aesthetics, and even religion, originated through completely natural processes."

And this one:

"6. Darwinism overturned the Judeo-Christian view of death as an enemy, construing it instead as a beneficial engine of progress. Darwin remarked in The Origin of Species, "Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."

First off, the "immaterial soul" bit... is this really an argument that leads to the thousand year Reich? And if these natural processes lead to reason, morality, aesthetics, and even religion, then what else do we say but "three out of four isn't bad"?

Secondly, from point six, Darwin's view of the production of higher animals was not a prescription for genocide either. This was an argument from Darwin's observations of the breeding of domesticated animals. This thought, the "struggle for existence", which Darwin and Wallace arrived at independently, is not a moral or qualitative judgement. Some interpretations of this concept led to doctrines of Social Darwinism, which was not Darwinian, and in its turn led to strains of thought which could be said to have lead to the Nazis, such as the eugenics movement. Did Darwin view death as the enemy? He certainly viewed death as a personal, individual tragedy when it happens in your immediate family: two of his own beloved young children among those that left him prostrate with grief. So you tell me: did Darwin feel a fear of Death, the great Enemy, rather than viewing it as an engine of progress, when it confronted him personally? Ridiculous.

Having just read (and reviewed) a biography of Darwin, having studied the period of the Darwinian Revolution, and with another Darwin biography started in the queue, I think that I have some idea of the man and how he felt about his fellow human beings. So let me make a few unsubstantiated remarks about Darwin: he was certainly not a proponent of slavery - one of his significant arguments with Robert Fitzroy on the Beagle was on this very subject, with young Darwin taking the anti-slavery position (this would have been a few years before slavery was abolished in the British Empire, in 1838). Darwin felt the pain of his fellow creatures deeply, and was responsible for considerable good in his local village, including the foundation of a society to help the poor.

So I would suggest that it was not merely wrong to conflate the name "Darwin" with the hateful coinage of the National Socialists, but that it was, in fact, antithetical to the man and to what he saw as the real reason for his work: to understand the world around him. It is only when understanding has grown, and when we see that, for example, that "nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution", that we as a species will really understand that fundamental interconnectedness of all things. Stop seeing humanity as separate, and special, and we are left in the very real position of wonder at our self-awareness and awareness of the world around us. From that, everything else falls into place.

And, with the theme of things falling into place, I'd have to include the boys over at the Disco. The release of this article could be timed to coincide with pre-release publicity, could be in response to criticism from people who have already seen rough cuts of the movie, or could just be coincidental and random and meaningless - considering the cack-handed approach taken thus far, one has to wonder. But doesn't it seem odd for them to be trotting out their tame historian before it is time to actually defend the content of this (and here I make a prediction) wretched film? There is a whiff of panic in the air...

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* I know that it's somewhat hyperbolic to make that statement. What can I say? Sometimes, < irony >, I'm just blinded by the sheer bloody brilliance of these guys < /irony > .

Happy Birthday!

You know who you are... < grin >

Sorry, before you get too excited, that cake would be far beyond my skill. But hopefully we'll find something equivalent...

Carl Sagan Commemorated in Beer

The much-missed Carl Sagan's ideas and work are being commemorated in Portland, Oregon on the upcoming Earth Day (22 April) in a fitting manner... in an organic India Pale Ale.

The Guest on Tap site has the details:

"Hair of the Dog owner and brewer Alan Sprints is “trying to get people to think globally and drink locally,” with his Earth Day public sale at the brewery. The sale celebrates the first release of Blue Dot each spring.




"Blue Dot, an imperial IPA made with 98 percent organic ingredients, was named for Carl Sagan’s description of this planet, “in order to bring more awareness to the Earth,” Sprints says.




"As more brewers begin brewing “green beer,” they are clamoring for organic hops. Currently New Zealand is the only reliable source of organic hops, with some German organic hops available from time to time. In Oregon, only about 10 acres of hops are under organic cultivation.




“The market is demanding (organic hops) and has forced growers to change their attitude,” Michelle Palacios of the Oregon Hop Commission says. “It’s very different from a decade ago. Before no one was interested in trying.”

"Powdery and downy mildews that plague hops are typically combated with chemicals; hops rival strawberries as one of the most heavily sprayed crops."

There's an interesting history of hops over at Wikipedia, and I may try to find a book or two on the subject in the near future. If you happen to be among the zymurgically-inclined and you're also curious about how your beverage of choice is produced, brewery tours are another fascinating way to spend an afternoon - and there are usually samples... The Dear Wife's Uncle Charlie (doesn't everyone have an "Uncle Charlie", somewhere?) sometimes leads these tours at our local brewery, Boulevard Brewing, and there is a man who knows his onions (is there an onion beer? I hope not).

I was trying to think of other organic beers, but only two spring to mind: Sam Smith's Organically Produced Ale and Organically Produced Lager (I'm sure that there are more than that - I'll just have to find them). There are also the local breweries to check, particularly Boulevard Brewing and the Free State Brewery over in Lawrence, KS; especially in the case of the latter, I can't imagine that they don't at least periodically attempt an organic ale of some description. In the meantime, either one of the Sam Smith's varieties will do for a celebration a week from today, to raise a glass to the memory of Carl Sagan, and to renew your commitment to the search for understanding on our Pale Blue Dot.

Expelled Summary in the Observer

As though to counter the recent article in the Grauniad, the Observer has today published Adam Rutherford's summary of the state of play leading up to the release of Expelled. I'm just ignoring the fact that they're both a part of the Guardian Media Group for the moment - it makes my head hurt less that way (and I shouldn't be surprised, really - editorial policies, like politics, are often local, from what I understand). The comments thread is quite lively over there too - take a look if you've had your morning caffeine (I haven't, yet - pops out to put the kettle on). Rutherford is a writer for Nature, so his position largely and welcomely echoes that of the editors at Scientific American.

Which, if nothing else, gives me an excuse to act again on yesterday's marching orders: Expelled.

Per The Secret Directive

I love it when my marching orders are this simple.

Expelled... descending soon like a swarm of locusts (and just as welcome).

Mark Ravenhill Doesn't Understand

The article title in the Grauniad itself was enough to cause interest: "Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art."

This arts piece, penned by British dramatist Mark Ravenhill, begins with an unlikely twist: the hyperbolic reaction of Russell T. Davies when Professor Richard Dawkins was present on the set of the current series of Doctor Who. The quote is as follows:

"And so the stellar casting in Doctor Who continues with the news that Professor Richard Dawkins, biologist and bestselling author of The God Delusion, is to appear in the current series as himself. On Outpost Gallifrey, the definitive Doctor Who website, I read that Russell T Davies, the show's executive producer, and all the crew were delighted to see Dawkins. "People were falling at his feet," says Davies. "We've had Kylie Minogue on that set, but it was Dawkins that people were worshipping.""

The news that Professor Dawkins was to appear in the new series broke last week, and Davies, who appears to do nothing by half-measures, was doubtless being dramatic for the sake of the interview: he's certainly done it before. He may have meant worshipping, he may not. Somehow I doubt it. I think that it was his exuberance and excitement, and perhaps a touch of self-promotion, showing through, but I could be wrong. Who cares? But Ravenhill continues:

"It's a great tribute to our age that a scientist can still be greeted with more adulation than a pop princess. But I can't help noting the irony of the imagery that Dawkins' reception has conjured up. Falling at his feet? Worshipping? It all seems oddly reminiscent of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the days before his Passion; a strange resonance for the scientist who has declared himself the champion of secularism in a world where, he claims, the delusions of faith are gaining an increasing stranglehold."

I think that it is possible to make too much of this. No one is talking about making Dawkins, or Hitchens, or anyone else into some sort of replacement for the mythologies that they are striving to supplant. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone being more embarrassed at the prospect than Professor Dawkins. And if you want to compare a television set in Cardiff to the road into Jerusalem, be my guest, but it seems rather laughable to me.

Mr Ravenhill continues in this vein, giving his own "conversion story", as it were. To give him his due, he does state that "Christianity is a myth". However, after briefly recounting his personal history, and its impact on other playwrights and himself, he then follows with these words:

"There's something about their sharp iconography and intense language that suggests a youthful experience of Christianity on the part of the writer. And I resent the possibility that aggressive secularism would deny future generations this inspiration."

Would that it were possible that "aggressive secularism" was already in such a position. But does Mr Ravenhill really understand what secularism seeks? Somehow, I'm not certain that he does.

As someone who knows the period of history during which Christianity rose fairly well, one of the points that I have to make is in response to this paragraph:

"The Bible - as literature, if nothing else - should be an essential part of every child's experience. And children should study the great Christian art of the past, too. We often have a revisionist view of this great legacy of paintings, music and literature. Of course, we can't help denying the beauty and resonance of the Sistine Chapel, Handel's Messiah, Milton's Paradise Lost or the York mystery plays. But we like to tell ourselves that their creators were covert humanists, who wanted to make art and had no choice other than to make it within the confines of a church that held all the power and money."

I don't for one second believe that anyone with an eye for true artistic beauty, or an ear for musical beauty, would ever "deny[...] the beauty and resonance of the Sistine Chapel", and the rest of Mr Ravenhill's examples, not to mention tens of thousands of others, including the art of non-Christian cultures. I've known a lot of non-believers, and they were among the most stunned and appalled at the destruction of the Bamyan Buddhas, to name but one example. Do you really think that the victory of a "secular army" would be followed by some sort of mass reprisal?

Consider, for a moment, the reaction of the newly enfranchised Christians of the 4th and 5th centuries CE. Were they as gracious as Mr Ravenhill expects the "secular army" to be? We have our answer - in the form of thousands, tens of thousands of manuscripts burned at the Library at Alexandria. The scraping of still others to create palimpsests which we are only just now finding that we can read again, nearly a millennium later. The destruction of ancient sites and using the very stones of former temples, homes, and civic buildings to instead construct churches. The rape of the Classical world at the hands of the Christian movement is something that no individual, historically aware or not, should be allowed to forget - or condone.

What I would suggest is that it would be very unlikely under a secular order that the so-called sacred texts of any of the currently jostling contenders for the crown of Top Religion were to be forgotten. It would be no more true than it is now with Norse mythology, Greco-Roman mythology, Egyptian mythology... it would be a mythology. We all learnt about them at school. I think that we can bear to learn about one or two more, although I don't think that there's any immediate danger of any of our current mythologies leaving us just yet, whatever we might wish.

"This idea that all artists are essentially humanists is a comforting myth for an agnostic age. There is little evidence to support it. It is, if you like, the agnostic's delusion - because the very opposite is true. The greatest artists, from Matthias Grünewald in the 15th century to Benjamin Britten in the 20th, had a genuine Christian faith: complicated, questioning, agonised at times, as any intelligent faith should be, but a very real faith all the same."

But wouldn't it have been so much more brilliant if they hadn't been lumbered with their "genuine Christian faith"? What amazing things would Benjamin Britten have been able to do if he hadn't been tormented by the incongruity between his faith and his human frailties? Would he have been a greater or a lesser composer? What about Oscar Wilde? Or Michaelangelo? Or... insert as many names as you like here, because it doesn't matter. I can't know, I don't know - and neither do you. We play, as the worn and tired cliché goes, the hand that we are dealt at the time at which we are dealt it.

Of course, America is a very different place from Britain. America does not have the luxury of a gentle cushion of secularism onto which to faint should it get a touch of the vapours from some nasty old deity-botherer or other. In America, people wish to do very real and lasting harm to the founding principles of the government and the courts. They wish to inject their opinions on matters which they do not understand into arenas where those opinions have no place. They wish to remake the world in their twisted dominion view. This is frankly scary. It doesn't apply to all Christians. It doesn't apply to the gentle, retiring C of E vicar who is a fixture at the village fête and is writing a monograph on the butterflies of Sussex, nor the tireless defender of the poor and needy, who does what she does because she believes that her god expects it of her. Sadly, if America had more Christians like that, and fewer madmen and madwomen, it would be far easier to have the discussions that are needed about the future of religion in a world governed by science - because that is where it is going.

I don't speak for every secularist, humanist, agnostic, or atheist. I speak for myself. I know history better than many, and I know that its greatest value comes from being preserved, examined, and discussed. As far as I'm aware, we're not planning to melt all the icons and pull down all the religious art in the museums, galleries, and churches the moment that the battle is won. There will be no Hammurabic reprisals for what happened in Alexandria sixteen hundred years ago. I don't think, Mr Ravenhill, that you understand the nature of the conflict, or the designs of the sides involved. Otherwise, your concern for these highly unlikely eventualities would have found a different expression, in a different place.

Perhaps in a play?

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EDIT: Entry corrected to fix an embarrassing mis-spelling of the author's name. Apologies.