Climate Change Deniers of the Left

Huffington Post featured and article titled, "How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best." Appearing directly above important reporting on MTV's Jersey Shore, the article is a sort of rambling, discursive apology for the obviously absurd claims made by homeopaths.

The article is amusing because it asserts in its title that homeopathy works, and never bothers to substantiate that point. It is, of course, necessary to point out that homeopathy doesn't actually work. Here is an excellent point-by-point rebuttal of claims made by homeopaths. Even the acting deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine admits, "There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment." The more stringent and detailed the trials or meta-analysis, the worse homeopathy fairs.

What I found more interesting about the Huffington Post, however, was the creative employment of random scientific concepts to "explain" how homeopathy works, "It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other."

Fairly detailed technological actions must be taken to liberate energy from an atom such that a bomb is created. Were that power accessible by merely diluting a substance in water, the world would be a much more harrowing place. But this is the typical approach of a pseudo-scientist: use scientific sounding concepts and rely on the ignorance of the audience.

Hilariously, moths and sharks are then engaged to explain homeopathy:

"...it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival."

Of course, both the moth and shark developed those sensitivities through billions of years of evolution. Homeopathy, by contrast, has been around about 200. It's hard to understand how humans have evolved to react to diluted amounts of, say, caffeine in the same way that sharks have developed the ability to sense blood from a long way away. There isn't even an attempt to relate these concepts in any real sort of way. Using the same logic I could argue that because moths are attracted to light, sitting in the sun must be good for my skin. It's an almost complete non sequitur.

I have always found it perplexing that in this time of astonishing medical progress people are so drawn to so-called "alternative" healing methods. Homeopathy was around two centuries ago and did very little to ameliorate human well-being. It exists now as it exists then, but the improvement in human longevity and health have perfectly mimicked advancement in scientific medicine.

In order to defend homeopathy one must engage in the same broad condemnation of the scientific establishment that climate change deniers consistently employ: There is a "conspiracy" against alt-meds. The "establishment" is withholding information. At the same time language from science is engaged in misleading and confused ways to give the appearance of legitimacy. The Huffington Post article concludes by declaring homeopathy to be "quantum medicine." They want the prestige and influence of modern science without the annoying responsibility of verifying those claims using scientific methodology.

Cuddle the gay right out...

First, this flawless destruction of a malignant pseudo-scientist should be admired:

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Cohen offensively denies responsibility for the logical results of demonizing and dehumanizing homosexuals. This tactic is typically employed by purveyors of hate speech. Morris Dees, working against a similar defense, crippled the KKK by legally proving the connection between the rancorous speech of its leaders and the violence of its followers.

On the positive side, American public opinion has shifted so strongly against bigotry directed at homosexuals that Cohen and his like-minded friends in Washington have to export their hate. Unfortunately, as Maddow discussed, there appears to be at least one nation eager to live out the predictable consequences of the "homosexuality as a dangerous disease" theory. Hopefully publicizing the links between the movement in Uganda and certain members of the US Congress will shame them into using their influence to stop the travesty, but hatred is always easier to foment than to quell.

But what really caught my eye was this:


That is Cohen displaying his methods. I could spend a thousand years trying to come up with the funniest, most absurd anti-gay treatment, and I would never be able concoct something as risible as that man climbing into the other's lap. I thought he was going to attempt to breast feed. Then you add the ever-so-gentle caressing and the enraged haranguing of the conjured image of his mother and you have comedy gold.

And another pseudo-scientist engages in self-parody the moment his chimerical ideas escape the tight circle of true believers.

In Search of a Prize-Winner

I know I'm late to the party with this one, but Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize this morning. Thousands of columns and posts have already been written detailing why Obama does or does not deserve this honor, or how it portends the End Times.

My question is, rather, why not? The President has done much in his first months in office to repair the White House's relationships with governments around the world, and has, through the art of speech-making and state-craft, done perhaps even more to improve public perception of the United States as a whole world-wide. He has pushed aggressively for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, begun the process of closing down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, soundly rejected Bush Administration's policies that institutionalized torture and systematic violation of civil liberties, and has begun the process of ending a bloody, unjust war in Iraq.

Perhaps it still seems intuitively premature to award a sitting President the prize only months into his first term, but I fail to see who would have been a 'better' choice this year. Not only is Obama an internationally recognized symbol for the end of a thankfully brief period of 21st century neo-conservative imperialism, he is actively working to rectify the damage done over the last eight years.

Everybody's a critic

I was disappointed by this immature article that appeared at Salon. I will ignore the repeated, non substantive whining about Olbermann's tone and affect, and focus on the objections that implied some legitimate argument.

The author's criticisms of Olbermann's Wed., Oct. 7, special comment are honestly bizarre. He begins by complaining that while Olbermann could have, "taken on the myths against (health care reform or specific health care bills/proposals) -- instead he spent his time making solemn pronouncements."

I don't expect Mike Madden, the writer, to watch every episode of Countdown, but even a superficial knowledge of the show or a half hour dedicated to researching his highly critical posting would reveal a relentless effort by Olbermann to "take on the myths" weighing down the health care debate. In about five minutes I found Olbermann contradicting the death panel claims, Joe Wilson and the illegal immigrant whopper, and the socialism canard. These are just a few examples I found quickly on YouTube, hardly a comprehensive representation of the actual time he devoted to the issue (Here he is calling out congressmen for accepting campaign contributions from the health care industry, and here he deals with industry profits).

Were I Olbermann, having spent basically the last six months dealing with the health care issue on a nightly basis, I would be insulted by such a misguided complaint. The special comment was meant to be special. He spends every night doing what Madden thought was omitted. Olbermann attempted to deal with the issue from a more personal perspective. It's fair to criticize the effort, or say it fell short, but it's hardly reasonable to chastise the person who, along with his colleague Rachel Maddow, has spent exponentially more time debunking health care myths than anyone else on television.

Which leads to Madden's second point of contention: "...Olbermann's sudden sense of wonder at a broken system seemed misplaced somehow. The problem isn't that people don't know how messed up things are; the problem is that a handful of lawmakers appear to be afraid to do anything about it." Bolding mine.

Er, that isn't the problem, but it's certainly a large one. The Republican approach to health care, essentially the competing "plan," is the status quo--no change. They have bolstered this point by time and time again, with varying degrees of sanity, proclaiming that there is no crisis and America has the best health care system in the world.

There are at least two basic ways to strengthen an argument: add additional supporting information or undermine the opponent's stance. Olbermann wasn't expressing a "sudden sense of wonder," that's just a baseless, snarky insult, he was attempting, like Micheal Moore with Sicko, to express a debate that involves billion dollar deficits, projections of exploding costs decades into the future, and complicated tax structures, at its most basic level: how it effects people's health. When constucting an argument, that type of anecdotal evidence serves as a powerful instantiation of broader data, which Olbermann included.

The article has plenty more objectionable material, but the line that beautifully summed up the complete vapidity of the criticism was in this passage, quoted in length for comedic effect:

"The "Special Comment" took on all sorts of issues that didn't appear to have much to do with the healthcare debate. Olbermann engaged in a rhetorical battle with Winston Churchill, who had opposed national health insurance in Britain after World War II (and, Olbermann said, lost his government for it). He won the fight, for what it was worth, by digging up a Churchill quote from the 1930s where the former British prime minister insisted government had a right to provide for people's well-being. But what was the point? Churchill is dead; the healthcare reform plan isn't remotely modeled on Britain's National Health Service; the only people who think it is are the conservative opponents of reform."

It's almost impossible to write about something like that without resorting to the basest of sarcasm. I will try to avoid such. For the most part, the problems with that passage are obvious and don't require detailed explanation. I would just point out that Madden's argument, to the extent it could be dubbed such, applies to any historical reference. He seems to be advancing the idea that only events comparable in exact detail are useful for edification and analogy.

Studying the social and political battles other nations waged to achieve universal coverage is so obviously relevant that it's hard to understand what Madden was thinking when he made the comment bolded above. I can only speculate why Madden wrote as he did and why the editors of Salon read the piece and thought it was worthy of heading up their daily list of articles, but it has the feel of criticism for criticism's sake.

In the spirit of fairness, I will close by agreeing with Madden on one point. Olbermann's complaint about the term "public option" was not a particularly strong point. From Madden's article:

"Take the public option. Its trouble, Olbermann insisted, is its name. "Political speak," Olbermann said. "It is legalese. It is the ego of the informed strutting down the street and saying, 'Look at me, I talk smart.'" (Perhaps not the most cutting insult, coming in the middle of an hour-long monologue.) Instead, Democrats should have called it "Medicare for all," he said."

Madden was quite right to conclude, "Calling the public option Medicare for all "might not be literally true, but instead of terrifying, it would be reassuring," (Olbermann) said. Explaining how it would work -- or why the Senate Finance Committee is resisting putting it in the bill -- might have been a more productive use of his time."

Again, Olbermann has done the explaining on many previous occasions, but demanding that proponents of health care reform start calling the public option something it clearly isn't for PR purposes was by far the weakest element of Olbermann's comment.

Flat tax now or we revolt

A paragraph of this interesting piece by Johathan Chait caught my eye:

"The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers pay 29.4 percent of their income in local, state, and federal taxes. The top 1 percent pay an average total tax rate of 30.9 percent..."

So there's a 1% difference when the totality of taxes are gauged. In other words, we basically have a flat tax.

In light of this fact, perhaps the maudlin right, those who feel Obama is punishing the rich, could just chill out with the apocalyptic stuff for a while.

That's change we can believe in

As if it weren't enough that Scandinavia has such a superior health care system, now their bus drivers are dominating the nerd community.

The Huffington Post blogger concludes with this question, "So, When/If he gets married will he make his wife take his name?"

I'm guessing that won't be an issue that comes up.

MJ's White Whale...NOT Luc Longley

Five people were inducted to the NBA's Hall of Fame last night: Jerry Sloan, Vivian Stringer, John Stockton, David Robinson, and Michael Jordan.

I stumbled on the ceremony in time to see Robinson and Stockton's speeches. I was impressed with both players. They looked back on their careers with humility and joy. They were surrounded by large families and gave sincere, eloquent thanks to a great many people. And then it was Jordan's turn.



No person on the planet simultaneously fills me with as much joy and disdain as Jordan. He is without a doubt the greatest athlete of my lifetime. He was the embodiment of true competitive virtue: He worked harder and longer than anyone else, he perfected the fundamental aspect of the game and incomparable, spectacular play emerged from that foundation. He overcame every obstacle, the harder the opposition, the more furious his play. It is simply impossible to imagine a more perfect athlete.

And yet the same characteristics that composed his indomitable spirit have twisted his personality, leaving him a bitter, angry man despite his astonishing success. His speech was disturbing, to say the least (Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski did an excellent job of highlighting some of the more concerning points of the presentation).

The most striking aspect of Jordan's speech was the utter lack of anything resembling joy or happiness in the memories of his playing days. He simply rehashed a series of grudges, using a "log on the fire" metaphor to justify the redress of old scores. It was graceless and pathetic, beneath a player of his stature.

Certainly his competition was partially responsible for his greatness, and there is nothing wrong with mentioning that. He could have thanked Isaiah Thomas and the Pistons for putting him through hell, and indeed, the portion where he discussed Pat Riley's antagonism was interesting. But most of Jordan's words were aimed at people who, whether intentionally or not, slighted him in some way. It was a grisly sort of taunting aimed at his defeated adversaries, a basketball version of displaying collected scalps.

Michael Jordan's life seems to be playing out like an alternate ending to Moby Dick. In this story, Ahab catches the whale, but remains unsatisfied. He goes on to kill every aquatic mammal on the planet, and still spends his remaining years screaming at their ghosts. From a career so astonishing that a fictional version would seem unbelievable and cartoonish, Jordan's mind is fixated on every slight, every tiny bit of perceived disrespect. In light of this bitter resentment of a beautiful career one has to ask if anything could satisfy that compulsion, whether any level of success could quench that fire. Ahab's demise almost seems merciful set against a potential life of twisted anger and insecure jealously.

As a post script, the section of Jordan's speech that was least humorous and most transparently vindictive were the words aimed at former Bulls GM, Jerry Krause. Krause famously said that organizations win championships. Jordan took this as a slight, an used his hall of fame speech to reiterate his contention that players are all that matter (don't try to tell Jordan that players and coaches are part of the organization). Given Jordan's abject and continuing failure as an executive, the stance that originally sounded like a demand for respect now sounds like an excuse. Hey, all he can do as an exec is draft and sign players, if they don't perform, it's on them. Thus the Kwame Brown and Adam Morrison failures weren't the result of bad scouting or poor executive planning, it was a personal failure of the players in question.

Each time Jordan spews his venomous resentment of Krause it becomes more of a rationalization for his lackadaisical executive work. Across all major sports, the last two decades have justified Krause's claim as the Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots, Colts, Spurs, and Lakers have all won multiple championships with immense personnel turnover. As the Yankees gear up for another championship run, the only remaining players from their dominant 90's teams are Jeter, Posada, Pettit, and Rivera. The organization is responsible for filling the gaps.

Step aside, Borat

Sometimes I attempt to describe with words the sensation of listening to John Coltrane play. It's a futile task. Music, and non-literary arts in general, affect an emotional part of humanity that resides deeper than our language faculties. It is quite simply ineffable.

I feel a similar limitation when attempting to describe Glenn Beck. Yes, he's crazy, but his insanity, though hardly subtle, is somehow kind of charming. It's not "kidnap a young girl and keep her in your shed crazy." It's more like a combination of "enthusiastic Star-Trek nerd crazy" and "four year old explaining the preferred diet of her imaginary friend crazy." An excited, earnest communication of his fears and beliefs...that just happen to be so bizarrely incorrect that one almost feels bad refuting his facts. There's so much more wrong with him.

Of course, his delusions, entertaining as they happen to be, are hardly harmless. Given that leading Republicans view him as an intellectual luminary, his portrait of Obama as an white-people hating communist cannot simply be shrugged off as the work of a cable entertainer.

Watching Beck in real time, and noting with shock and disappointment that he has a large, devoted following, feels like being on the ground floor of the creation of a new religion. He has a passionate, unhinged certainty that is the hallmark of all mystics and cult leaders. Numbers, not truth, make a cult a religion, and I'm not sure a television show produced by Joseph Smith would be all that different.

But I find myself simultaneous in stitches (Oligarhy? Really?) and terrified. Especially given the oddly violent tone of the health care protests. He seems so daffy and harmless, but it only takes a couple of nut jobs to buy into his mutilation of affairs, both current and historic, to turn the clown into something all together more dangerous.

A glimpse behind the curtain...

I read this article and figured it all out:

Seeking vengeance for the CIA's creation and release of the HIV virus that decimated his native land, Obama and Jeremiah Wright developed the H1N1 virus to destroy the population of old white people responsible for segregation and other race crimes.

It's obvious that Obama had to rapidly force a health care bill with a death panel provision through congress so he could euthanize those old white people.

It's all so obvious when you put the pieces together.

The Staircase

After offering a book recommendation, I'd like to follow up with a suggestion for a documentary to watch. Before I begin the commentary, however, I should say that I will be giving away spoiler-type information. If you want to watch the film as I did, with no knowledge of the outcome, stop reading now. There are some incredible twists that will lose impact if you know the outcome.

Besides being a fascinating look inside of a high-profile murder trial, The Staircase stands as a stark warning of exactly how dangerous a science-ignorant population can be. Michael Peterson’s wife was found dead at the bottom of a staircase. There was an astonishing amount of blood, leading investigators to suspect murder. The twists and turns are too numerous and bizarre to be quickly described, but it will suffice to say that the entirety of the prosecution’s case rested on the visceral response to the crime scene and the fact that Peterson engaged in homosexual affairs outside of his marriage. Southern Bigotry is a less interesting topic, and it's very difficult to determine how relevant it was, so I will be charitable to the people of Durham, NC and merely accuse them of stupidity.

The defense brought forward expert witnesses who used blood spatter patterns, the physics of impact, and a full battery of forensic and medical experts to destroy the notion that the death resulted from a beating. Among the most damning evidence to the prosecution was the fact that Peterson’s wife suffered no fracturing of the skull. There is an excellent portion of the film where the lead defense attorney goes through court and autopsy records and is unable to find a single instance of someone being beaten to death without suffering, at a minimum, some skull deformation in a decade of cases.

In a frightening instance of tailoring facts to fit an already-arrived-at conclusion, the prosecution explains the lack of fracturing by painting Peterson as a murdering genius. Peterson, they claimed, intentionally used an object that would cause trauma to his wife's brain without causing fractures because he knew that would look more accidental. Notice the odd conflation of reasoning: 1) There’s so much blood that it obviously looks like a beating. 2) The accused was a criminal genius who made this beating look like an accident. So does it look like a murder or an accident?

Setting aside the astonishing inconsistency, it stresses credulity to believe that Peterson was talented enough of a murder to hit someone's head hard enough to kill them from brain trauma, yet not hard enough to fracture the skull. On top of that, he called in the paramedics. This means he was confident that he had completed the murder without fracturing the skull, and reported the crime to reduce suspicion. That whole sequence requires a deft, steady hand, and there was no evidence to suggest that Peterson was such a proficient murderer.

But that’s not the important lesson from the film. Peterson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison by 12 people who completely ignored the scientific evidence that rendered the prosecution’s claim of a beating impossible. Michael Peterson sits in prison as you’re reading this because his wife had a tragic accident in a city filled with morons.

I understand how harsh that sounds, but when the filmmakers interviewed jury members after the case, asking how they were able to convict on such scant evidence, their major bit of evidence was the fact that there was so much blood. That sort of reliance on base emotional response and uneducated instinct is the hallmark of stupidity. Anyone with a basic respect for the complexity of the natural world quickly realizes that thoughtful study often yields counter-intuitive information.

If you look at any conspiracy theory, they almost always rely on that sort of “trust your instincts” nonsense. The Kennedy assassination claims all sorts of people certain that bullets just can't travel that way, never mind that a detailed, reasoned approach destroys that gut response. 9-11 “truthers” claim that the falling buildings “looked” like controlled demolitions. Unsurprisingly, those sorts of claims never come from anyone with actual experience in bringing buildings down, and to this day no one has ever published a peer reviewed paper claiming anything other than collapse resulting from collision, fire, and weight redistribution. And no matter how it may look, the Earth isn’t flat, and the sun does not revolve around it.

And so we have 12 people sentencing a man to a life of imprisonment because they think there was too much blood. How many crime scenes had they witnessed? What about all of the experts who explained in great detail how blood alone did not prove murder? Meh, just egg-head scientists. I know what I saw. To paraphrase Socrates, wisdom lies in knowing your own limitations, and so Peterson was condemned by people with far too much faith in their own knowledge.

The fundamental question emerging from The Staircase is this: Do you trust your neighbors to stay awake through a complicated scientific presentation proving that you could not have committed a crime you were accused of? I sure don’t.

We often bemoan the stupidity of our fellow citizens, mocking their zeal for fighting a war in a country they can’t find on a map, but those sorts of complaints are voiced with a shrug, as if to say, “what can we do?” But the issue is far more pressing and far more serious. There is a real price to pay, as Michael Peterson has learned.

Freedom for whom?

I wanted to post a thought about the current health care situation.

Unsurprisingly, the debate has been reduced to ignorant bickering about “socialism.” Obviously the mild reforms under discussion in Congress don’t approach actual government control of anything, but I’m more interested in how the concept of free markets and liberated enterprise have entered the debate. One gets the impression that most of our countrymen accusing Obama of "destroying" our nation believe that the Constitution mandates neo-liberalism. The concept is thus worth thinking about.

I remember hearing a theory about why the United States of America was responsible for almost every significant technological achievement of the first half of the twentieth century even though that economy was dwarfed by Britain's. The Second Industrial Revolution, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, was dominated in England by financial capitalists and massive corporations. It was a time of unimpinged mergers, acquisitions, and monopolies.

The United States had its fair share of Robber Barons and massive corporate entities during this era, but there was an intense progressive backlash. Laws regulating railroads, interstate commerce, and monopolies were passed in the 1880's and enthusiastically enforced by Teddy Roosevelt when he became president as the century turned.

The result was an American economy that promoted entrepreneurship while the British monopolies squashed their smaller competition.

So which system was a free market? The British system had less government interference, so in the terms of our modern debate, its system was more free. Yet the cancerous swelling of monopolistic companies crushed any sort of innovative freedom. America, on the other hand, advanced significant regulation, but that was the very thing that allowed new ideas to flourish. Strict regulation plowed the hardened soil, allowing entrepreneur's ideas a chance to grow. Thus, the notion of freedom is more a matter of perspective than an absolute dictate: promoting freedom in one area of enterprise will necessarily squash it in another.

This same reciprocal relationship exists in health care. The astonishing explosion costs have created a situation where a huge percentage of Americans are afraid to tinker with their employment situation for fear of losing health insurance. Perhaps a fellow citizen has several kids, is a smoker, has diabetes, or is suffering from some type of chronic condition that makes purchasing new, affordable health care a virtual impossibility. Someone in that situation cannot take risks, cannot venture out on their own, and is generally denied anything resembling freedom in the employment market. A society is best served by eliminating or, at least, reducing all factors unrelated to ability barring employment (race, gender, sexual preference...etc). Forcing people to stay in untenable, un-challenging, or unsatisfying employment merely to cover health care costs is a horrible way to run a society.

The case is even more clear when dealing with small and medium sized businesses. Creative, daring decisions are often constrained by the practical. That reality cannot be escaped, but as much risk unrelated to a business's quality should be controlled. Imagine if a start-up had to invest in a private police system or buy free-lance firefighting. No enterprise could flourish under such a regime. A quality, cheap government option for health care, like municipal police and firefighters, lowers the bar for prospective businesses and allows existing enterprises to focus their energy on production. It is a freeing policy.

In fact, the only group at all constrained by a potential government option would be the insurance companies that currently control the market.

And this brings us to the actual decision: do we want freedom of insurance companies to profit, or do we want to increase the freedom of employees to determine their work and the freedom of businesses to innovate?

That's obviously a loaded question, but it accurately represents the real choice. It isn't a decision between absolute freedom and Stalinistic control, it's a choice of how to prioritize our society. I, for one, see no long term advantage in giving that priority to the insurance companies. A system that eliminates as much business cost as possible, allowing, say, a new bio-tech firm to launch, will result in greater achievement, both technologically and economically.

We didn't outstrip the world by selling out to financiers and corporations, we charged ahead by controlling them.

The Great Mortality

I recently finished a simultaneously fascinating and horrifying account of the Great Plague in Europe. The author does a masterful job of following the disease in its bloody march through the medieval world. From its arrival in Italian harbors to its last burning embers in England, he uses first hand accounts, court records, and any other document he can get his hands on to trace the devastation in graphic detail. I highly recommend a look through the book. It will reintroduce you to an infamous but not well understood period in human history. Without a doubt it was the closest humanity has come to extinction in the historical period.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks mulling over how exactly to discuss The Great Mortality. With health care in the public mind it seems obvious to deal with the municipal responses. Certainly, the areas like Venice and Sicily that developed coordinated public responses (such as forming groups to gather and burn dead bodies, making illegal the practice of leaving a dead loved one on the doorstep to solicit pity donations from passing citizens, and setting up rudimentary quarantines). But their success was measured in a pitiful mitigation of the horror. They managed a mortality rate of 50%, as opposed to 60 or 70 in less coordinated areas. The Plague blasted through Europe unimpeded by human interference. The only thing mankind did that actually stopped the disease was die so fast that it ran out of hosts.

When searching for a contemporary lesson, there is the interesting story of Marseilles, France. As the disease spread, leaving Sherman-esque scorched earth in its wake, people desperately sought explanations. Unsurprisingly, the first group blamed for the death was the Jews. Even in 1350, they were the first choice of paranoid conspiracy theorists. An elaborate story followed the plague throughout Europe. The basic tale was agreed upon and tailored to fit local needs. The leader was always named Rabbi Jacob. He led a band of savage Jewish characters, like the kind-hearted but deceptive merchant, Agimentus. They spread their web of deceit throughout the continent using lepers to poison wells with the Plague. It’s not hard to imagine the response of the medieval mind to such a story.

Thus, the Jews were faced with two mortal enemies: the Plague and the terrified Christian citizens. They were attacked, murdered, and cast out of towns. One of the few cities that provided sanctuary was Marseilles.

Marseilles suffered death on the same level as the rest of Europe, losing between 40 and 60 percent of its population. Their openness, however, benefited them in two ways. First, because their citizens didn’t turn on one another, their civil system endured throughout the devastation. A great many medieval societies simply descended into anarchy amidst the plague. The death of city officials and other leaders coupled with a terrified, ignorant population caused the complete dissolution of anything resembling law and order. The lawlessness led to starvation, and the starvation, in some cities, to cannibalism. Marseilles, however, stood strong largely because of its tolerance.

Second, because Marseilles served as a safe-haven for expelled Jews, it was able to rebuild its population much quicker than its sea-trading rivals. In much of Europe, the plague left towns and cities so depopulated that labor was literally non-existent. Marseilles took advantage of their human capital and thrived in the years following the Black Death.

The lesson is certainly a good one. Even in a society radically different from ours, cooperation across racial and cultural lines proved massively beneficial. Yet it’s a minor point in the epic story of the Great Mortality, a momentary glimmer of light escaping a pit of midnight black.
As I considered the scope of the story, I was overcome by the tragic, desperate attempts of people to explain and rise against their assailant. At once, humanity shines in its refusal to meekly accept death and seems pitiful and ridiculous, trapped by ignorance. And so the lesson for modern times is simply a reminder of how we arrived here, from there.

There are a number of terrifying, potentially apocalyptic issues facing the contemporary world. Nuclear war, overpopulation, and global warming all have the potential to result in terrible death and chaos (as an interesting aside, when the United States and Soviet Union were studying the potential effects of an exchange of ICBM’s, they examined the Plague’s effect in Europe. Estimated casualties from a nuclear strike were identical to the actual mortality of the Black Death. So our medieval ancestors, as the book's author points out, faced the equivalent of a nuclear weapon exploding in every city on the European Continent). But they differ from the Plague in that even if we cannot stop them, we understand how they operate. When a nuclear weapon goes off, the result is known and predictable.

Early in the Plague’s run, an ill man decided to set his affairs in order and receive last rites. 24 hours later the man, the priest, the notary and several witnesses were dead. They were all buried together the next day.

There is a story of a traveler in England. He arrived one night at a well-staffed inn with several guests taking up residence in neighboring rooms. There were cooks, kitchen aids, cleaning women, the owners, and perhaps a dozen other people. He went to sleep in a bustling little world. He awoke the next morning to a silent building. Everyone had died during the night.
The virulence of the Great Mortality has recently led to a debate about whether or not the Black Death was the plague. Some researchers argue that it was a version of Ebola or some other equally horrible ailment. No other plague outbreak in history spread as fast or wiped out communities with the same haste. The book provides a strong, definitive argument that it was, indeed, Y. pestis, the plague bacterium, that caused the damage.

But place yourself in the mind of a man who wakes up in an empty inn, death all around him. He has no concept of microorganisms. The only explanation he can arrive at is that either Satan is destroying humanity in front of an uncaring God, or the Creator of the universe is punishing his bretheren. Such terror cannot possibly be recreated in our world.

When arguments over the existence of God and the role of religion in society are engaged, one often hears the mournful complaint, “why do you want to destroy something that brings such comfort to people?” The story of the Great Mortality should tell us what it is, in fact, that actually provides comfort.

One medieval theory of the Plague’s origin was an amusing combination of astrology and homeopathy. The alignment of the heavens in 1345 caused a deadly corruption of air. Mars ignited a blight of hot, dry air that was causing the sickness. The only remedy was to balance the four humors, combating the dry air with wet air. Doctors noticed that sanitation workers were not falling ill, and concluded it was because they breathed in the humid air of the latrine. Thus, medieval people flocked to latrines to bask in the wet air. Imagine the horror of your world that you would willing subject yourself to that kind of vomit-inducing situation.

The traditional Christian explanations and recommendations were equally moronic. In addition to the scapegoating of the Jews, medieval Christians saw the plague as a punishment for the sins of man. Scantily clad jousting tournament groupies were undoubtedly the cause. Strict morality was the only sure-fire protection from God’s wrath. Rome represented the epitome of moral excess and debauchery, thus it was concluded that people behave in direct contrast to a Roman.
Rome was famous for, among other things, their baths. Such things were viewed by the medieval clergy as sinful beyond words, so bathing was condemned. St. Francis of Assisi said bathing was a waste of God’s water, and St. Benedict held that bathing “shall seldom be permitted.” This stood in direct contrast to the Greek and Roman maxim that cleanliness was a virtue.

And, of course, the clergy died just like the rest of humanity, culled despite their desperate prayers. The total failure of the Church to lessen the spread of the plague caused people to ignore its dictates. Surprisingly modern concepts of morality emerged in the wake of the plague, as people decided to enjoy what little life they had. The Christian doctrine of self-abnegation was often abandoned.

Clearly humanity of the 21st century lives a life of comfort beyond the wildest dreams of the Europeans watching their world evaporate. So I ask, why? What happened over the last 700 years that gives me such comfort, while my European ancestors lived in such terror?

Was it religion? I would argue that no new passages of the Bible explaining the proper means of combating microorganisms were uncovered. No new prayers were developed. No, the difference is the result of the science's relentless march forward. Never again can a malady eliminate half of the world’s population in complete mystery. Even epidemics like AIDS or potential outbreaks of H1N1 can be fought against and effective treatments developed. And our knowledge grows at a staggering pace. The scientific community has already learned more in the few years of the 21st century than in the seven preceding that.

If the good religion provides to the world derives from its ability to comfort, it has been a peerless failure. I suppose an elaborate apology could be made on God's behalf for failing to include a message about lethal bacteria, but the Bible didn't even manage to provide basic health guidelines in terms of contemporary technology. The ghastly Greeks and the lascivious Romans discovered a basic truth about human health that eluded those in contact with the Infinite Intelligence.

If we simply take the modern Western world, 99.9% of the things offering us comfort come directly from science. We have cheap vaccinations that immunize our children from maladies that have killed millions over the years. Our water is made clean by methods derived from experiment, and our transportation made quick and safe by the scientific process.

So if in the sanctuary from uncaring nature provided by science someone takes solace in a chance at meeting their departed grandmother in the afterlife, I have no qualms with that belief. But as we all know, religion is never that innocuous. We are constantly confronted by people using the comforting power of religion as a justification for belief, who, in turn, use the dictates of that religion to halt the progress of science. These people have ignored and completely taken for granted the wonderful life given to them by the very process they try to destroy.

The phrase, "there are no atheists in foxholes," is often used by the religious to show where loyalties actually lie in times of trouble. I would spin that around. If you and your child woke up one morning in 1352 to a silent inn filled with dead bodies, would you be more comforted by a copy of the Bible or a bottle filled with antibiotics?

What I don't get about the "birther" movement...

The primary baffling attribute of the "Obama is Kenyan" conspiracy theory in my eyes is the complete lack of any evidenciary support for the claim.  With the Kennedy assassination you at least have some truly remarkable physics caught on video that gave rise to the magic bullet theory.  With the 9/11 truthers, you have one of the most incredible events of the modern age, again, caught on multiple dramatic videos.  In both instances, there is plenty of material for people to mull over, argue about, and gradually come to canonize into a theoretical system.

With the birther movement, I've yet to hear anyone forward their evidence in the popular media for why we should think that Obama is not a US citizen.  All we get is criticisms of his birth certificate.  Why should I think he was born in Kenya?  What's the theory?

People too pleased with themselves

I'm sure most people have already encountered this embarassment. I really have no idea why anyone would create such a thing. Do they honestly believe they're funny? Surely a wife, parent, cousin, or old friend from the neighborhood could tap one of these goofballs on the shoulder and explain that their smug, self-pleased production could be reproduced by randomly pulling a couple of coke-abusing prep-school pricks from their summer homes and demand they produce an immitation of the Colbert Report to get their next fix.

I assume they were trying to be tongue-in-cheek, but the failure couldn't be more impressive. It isn't funny, says nothing insightful, and displayed an amazingly pathetic approach to comedic writing.

They basically found a list of names of beers on the internet, scoured through them, and attached them to the name of a politician EVERY time there was a remotely noticeable connection. And then they just ran through them one after the other. It was like observing a really unfunny brainstorming session. And if they did actually leave material out, can you imagine what hit the cutting room floor? I assume it was another HILARIOUS riff on the fact that some beers have colors and people's skin also has color. Just think what they could do with Red Dog!

Of course everyone has focused on the "mad bitch" comment. It's hardly worth getting upset about, but it does make Dana Milbank alpha-douche. I'm sure the spaz that resembles Greg Maddux (if you subtract the athleticism, the skill, the intelligence, and all of the things that make Greg Maddux someone you want to watch)
will take it as a challenge and ferment some potent double-proof douche for their next debacle, but for now the crown rests with Milbank.

And there really are people who take him seriously

This post about Glen Beck makes an important point near the end:

Some folks - even a few at Daily Kos - have suggested that Keith Olbermann, Ed Schultz and even Rachel Maddow - are opposite numbers for Beck and other right-wing commentators. It's difficult to imagine a deeper slander.

This cannot be reiterated enough. The people on the left analagous to Beck are 9-11 conspriacy theorists and the most radical members of PETA. Notice that folks of that pursuasion are not given prime-time television shows.

More of that, please

I'm usually excited to confront insane conspiracy theories, but the so-called "birther" movement is completely devoid of anything worth thinking about. As Outis pointed out below, what little they think they have is nothing more than absurdly transparent lies. It's a convenient paranoid conspiracy for this busy age. No work is needed, just pop it in the microwave and watch it melt. It's the multi-tasker's obsessive fantasy.

But I do want to talk about something that I noticed after this nice take down by Chris Matthews:



Many media figures, most notably NBC's David Gregory, have attempted to defend their behavior in the months leading to Bush's Excellent Adventure in Iraq. Here we have Gregory, after YEARS of soul-searching, coming to the conclusion that there was nothing more he could have done:



I think Gregory is very genuine, he really doesn't know what he could have done better, and that's the problem. Where Gregory and the rest of the press corps failed was not so much in the way they asked questions, but in how ill-informed they were.

Take this now famous interaction between Bill Moyers and the late Tim Russert over a New York Times story reporting that Saddam Hussein had obtained or would obtain nuclear weapons:

BILL MOYERS: Was it just a coincidence in your mind that Cheney came on your show and others went on the other Sunday shows, the very morning that that story appeared?

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know. The NEW YORK TIMES is a better judge of that than I am.

BILL MOYERS: No one tipped you that it was going to happen?

TIM RUSSERT: No, no. I mean-

BILL MOYERS: The Cheney office didn't leak to you that there's gonna be a big story?

TIM RUSSERT: No. No. I mean, I don't have the-- This is, you know-- on MEET THE PRESS, people come on and there are no ground rules. We can ask any question we want. I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the NEW YORK TIMES.

BILL MOYERS: Critics point to September eight, 2002 and to your show in particular, as the classic case of how the press and the government became inseparable. Someone in the Administration plants a dramatic story in the NEW YORK TIMES And then the Vice President comes on your show and points to the NEW YORK TIMES. It's a circular, self-confirming leak.

TIM RUSSERT: I don't know how Judith Miller and Michael Gordon reported that story, who their sources were. It was a front-page story of the NEW YORK TIMES. When Secretary Rice and Vice President Cheney and others came up that Sunday morning on all the Sunday shows, they did exactly that.

My concern was, is that there were concerns expressed by other government officials. And to this day, I wish my phone had rung, or I had access to them.

What Gregory and Russert missed that Matthews managed to nail in the birther segment is that you have to do the research. You must be prepared, and the only real way to accomplish that goal is to approach your interviewee as an adversary.

Look, lawyers regularly oppose friends in the courtroom, but that doesn't stop them from being as critical of their opponent as possible. It would be an ethical breach to behave otherwise.

The birther movement is essentially rhetorical tee-ball: the claims are stupid, the proponents are transparent, and the research needed to destroy their laughable ideas is minimal. But notice that Matthews was effective because he showed up with a copy of the birth certificate. There was no wishing for phone calls. They called up Hawaii and obtained the necessary documentation.

Obviously the tone of the debate doesn't have to be so hostile and dismissive (though it was more than appropriate here), but the approach has to be the same. Interviewers need to confront public officials as adversaries, not enemies, but adversaries.

Russert and Gregory failed because they thought the necessary information would come to them, or simply asking open-ended questions would be sufficient to debunk administration claims.

I suggest that the popular media interviewers (Gregory, Rose, Couric, Gibson...etc) invite a birther to their program so they can practice actual critical opposition. After they've gotten fat on that veal, they can work their way through moon-landing deniers and 9-11 wackos until they're prepared to confront a Republican Congressman on global warming. If they can actually challenge those groups with serious facts and unrelenting scrutiny, then they can sit down with someone like Cheney. Until they realize that the only stances worth holding are the ones you can defend against a legitimate opponent, we will be stuck with more limp questions and reporters confused about what they did wrong.

Cherry Picking Statistics

There has likely been no time in history when it is easier to fact check a claim than our current age, thanks to the Google. That being the case, I'm really shocked at how often people attempt to skew statistical data that is easy to reference and double-check.

Think Progress has an interesting article discussing Sen. James Inhofe's recent declaration that defeating Obama's health care plan would be a 'huge gain' for the GOP for the 2010 election cycle. I want to zero in on an offhand talking point Inhofe delivered during his appearance on Janet Parshall's radio show:

But every day, they [Democrats] lose votes, because people find out what it is [the health plan], what it’s going to do, and what it’s not going to do. When you tell people that the
mortality rate in Canada is 25% higher for breast cancer, 18% higher for
prostate cancer, you know, they say why in the world would we emulate a system
like that?

Curious, I Google'd, "are mortality rates for cancer higher in Canada than USA," and the fourth listing was a CTV article from the CTA.ca News Staff that include this incredible factoid:
In a report on worldwide cancer survival rates, Canada ranked near the top of the 31 countries studied with an estimate five-year survival rate of 82.5 per cent.

For breast cancer, Cuba had the highest survival rates -- another country with
free health care. The United States was second, and Canada was third, with 82
per cent of women surviving at least five years.

Emphasis mine. So, Inhofe used the USA's excellent survival rates for breast cancer as a way to demean the quality of health care in Canada and universal health care (or socialized medicine) in general. He fails to mention that not only is Canada ranked third in the world in breast cancer mortality rates, but the highest ranking country is communist Cuba.

We again must ask ourselves if Inhofe is simply clueless about the state of affairs regarding cancer mortality rates, or if he is a shameless liar who cherry-picked a statistic to forward an argument that the greater corpus of the statistical data absolutely refutes.

How Conspiracy Theories are Born

This is a fascinating diary from Daily Kos by CatM about the most recent developments in the ongoing Obama birth certificate drama.  For those who don't want to follow the link: today on Hardball G. Gordon Liddy claimed that Obama is an 'illegal alien' and dropped the bombshell on Chris Matthews that he, "ha[s] a deposition, sworn statement from the step-grandmother who says, 'I was present and saw him [Obama] born in Mumbasa, Kenya.'"

There are a number of things that I find fascinating about this declaration, the least of which being that it's completely false.  There is no deposition or 'sworn statement', Liddy simply has a partial transcript of a phone call that took place between a self proclaimed street minister, Bishop Ron McRae and a Swahili translator who happens to be Sarah Obama's step grandson that was recorded without their knowledge or consent.  More importantly, the transcript itself is not particularly revealing: 

MCRAE: Uh, could I ask her, uh, could I ask her about his, uh, his, his, his actual birthplace. I would like to see his birthplace when I, when I come to Kenya in December. Uh, was she, was she, was she present when he was--

VOICE (in background): It is here.*

MCRAE: Was she present when he was born in Kenya?

BROTHER TOM (in background): He is asking her that, uh, he wants to 
know something that uh, was uh you, was they, was she present when, ah, 
he was born. Were they they there then?

TRANSLATOR OGOMBE: Yes, they say that yes she was. She was 
present when Obama was born. 
(McRae catches breath)

There you have it, folks.  A 'sworn statement' from Sarah Obama that our president is an illegal alien.  Take a moment to parse the sentence, "Was she present when he was born in Kenya?" then, "Was she present, when he was born, in Kenya?"  Now translate it into Swahili, then Luo, the language that Mrs. Obama speaks according to Bill Kristol.  If you are McRae, you see definitive proof that Mrs. Obama was present when the President was born.  If you are less excitable, you wait for clarification.

Clarification that occurs literally moments later and was notably excised from the transcript as it was submitted in court as evidence during the a recent lawsuit challenging Obama's citizenship.  From the transcript:

TRANSLATOR OGOMBE (to McRae): No! Obama was not born in 
Mombasa! He was born in America!

MCRAE: Wh-whereabouts, whereabouts was he born? I, I thought he was born in Kenya.

TRANSLATOR OGOMBE: No he was born in America, not in Mombasa.

MCRAE: OK. Do you know whereabouts he was born?

TRANSLATOR OGOMBE: (Pause.) Huh? 

MCRAE: Do you know where he was born? I thought he was born in Kenya. I was gonna go by and see where he was born.

(two male voices in background in foreign language speaking at the same 
time. Mrs. Obama or another woman in background.)

VOICE (background): It was Hawaii.

As I see it, there are a few different interpretations of Liddy's actions: (1) he went on national television and advanced a conspiracy theory based on a partial transcript of this phone call and was too stupid to read the entire thing or check up on it before declaring his faith in it, or (2) Liddy knew that the transcript was bogus but believes he can do significant political damage to Obama's presidency by promoting this particular meme.  Neither interpretations are particularly flattering.

Either way, I think this is a wonderfully illustrative example of how conspiracy theories are born.  It literally starts with a game of telephone, moving through three languages and resulting in a confusing situation that requires further clarification.  The resultant transcripts (full and partial versions) demonstrate how easily confusion can spread when small bits of information are removed from their context.  General laziness and a national press platform now combine to create legitimacy for the theory - you can already hear the conservative pundits claiming that the controversy is spreading like wildfire now that it's been discussed on MSNBC.  And, once the theory has gone mainstream, it's impossible to ever completely discredit it as long as their are people that want to believe it enough that they are willing to harass 85 year old women from Kenya.

It's not the crime, it's the cover-up

Despite the best efforts of LeBron James and Nike, a video of a college player dunking on the "King" was released to the public.

Video

(I removed the embedded version because it begins to play whenever the page is loaded--very annoying)

In LeBron's defense, there was a grassy knoll to the left, just outside of the camera's sight. Several eyewitnesses report a man in a hooded sweatshirt using a snare-trap to restrict BronBron's ability to jump. But the "mainstream media" will never tell you about that.

What's extraordinary about this video is how completely unimpressive it is. We see LeBron coming across the paint late to give a half-hearted challenge to a player in the midst of his leap. I fail to see how this would reflect poorly on James, but somehow it was deemed as being harmful to his carefully crafted image.

The release of the footage was so anticipated precisely because James' camp, which included Nike, went to such links to suppress the story. Had they just let the clip appear on YouTube it would have been mentioned on the endless talking-head sports shows for one day, and no one would ever think about it again. It would have slipped down the memory hole as a funny aberration, like this clip of the Greatest losing a pick-up game to a CEO that paid thousands of dollars to stand on the court next to him:



Obviously a long retired Jordan wasn't going at 100%, and when you play 200 people in a row, odds are one of them will toss up a couple of lucky shots, and everyone understands this.

But LeBron (or Nike) turned his unremarkable video into an event by sending people around the court to confiscate tapes. In this day and age, it should be obvious that complete control of such things is impossible, as the smuggled cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution proves. From Nixon to Clinton to Craig, the indisputable lesson of all potential scandals is to simply own it and move on.

PS-I haven't kept up on the course of events, but I was hesitant to link to the LeBron video because it appeared on an "Ebaum" site. A few years ago a rather interesting scandal involving the proprietor of the site, Eric Bauman. He would scour the Internet for videos other people had created (many on the often very funny ytmnd.com), stamp them with his brand, and place them on his site.

Here is the wikipedia summation of the story.

I am thus tentative to support such a site. In this case, the video has been placed on ESPN's homepage, Yahoo Sports, and countless other sites, so my drop in the ocean is beyond irrelevant. But it's worth knowing about shady practices, even when they occur between nerds.

Ain't my Fault

Glenn Greenwald's interview with Chuck Todd was amazing.

Todd concludes his generally self-justifying statements with an intensely defensive claim about the media’s role in potential torture investigations:

Well, look, I think the problem, though, sits not with the media in this respect. And this is what frustrates me a little bit, is that the problem, the people we should be upset with are the folks on the Hill, folks in the White House, folks at the Justice Department. Those are the ones who have the power of the subpoena, and the power to do these things, not the media. And I know we get beaten up about it. But the power does lie in Congress. And the power does lie in the Justice Department.

Ah, so I shouldn’t blame poor Chuck Todd because he can’t order the commencement of legal procedures. Evidently, the “fourth estate” no longer possesses the ability to speak truth to power. Only power can deal with power in this nation. That’s an astonishingly self-effacing view for a reporter. Chuck Todd, stenographer. And to say such a thing while your network is busy canonizing Walter Cronkite. I am having trouble imagining a more direct insult to his legacy.

And also note that lacking the puissance to confront such problems is one thing, using what measly strength you think you have to provide a defense for those public officials, which was the act that motivated Greenwald's initial criticism, is another.

But there’s more. According to Todd, the issue is, gasp, complicated:

But you're assuming a black and white. I mean, the whole point of those OLC memos was showing that they were getting a set of, that the interrogators were potentially getting legal advice to, and in fact what the Bush administration was trying to do, was trying to find a legal way. They were trying to find a legal way, they were trying whatever, which is, of course, my - as a non-lawyer - my frustration with the law sometimes - is that the law isn't clear cut.

If only there were a venue for settling legal disputes in this country. Call your Congressmen now and demand that they create a forum whereby parties in conflict over the interpretation of a legal code could have a person or group of people analyze the arguments and render a decision.

Todd’s fundamental problem with assigning a Justice Department lawyers to investigate the entire torture culture appears to be the fact that it would become “political:”

I agree, in a perfect world - Glenn, in a perfect world, yes. And if you could also guarantee me, that this wouldn't become a show trial, and wouldn't be put, and created so that we had nightly debates about it, that is the ideal way to handle this.

Colbert did a nice bit on this little gem.

So in summation, Chuck Todd thinks that (1) the media has no power, so leave them alone, (2) the issue is tricky, so ignore it, and (3) when a case is debated on television it becomes a “show trial.”

Where to begin? I can start by offering congratulations to Todd for consistency. He thinks the media lacks the power to hold politicians responsible for bad behavior, and he also believes it cannot stop itself from turning an investigation into a circus (see the above Colbert link). A truly neutered animal, this press of ours.

I may be naïve, but I would assert that if networks focused on the substance of the case, leaving the politics as an afterthought, you would be less likely turn the otherwise gravely serious investigation into Absurdist Theater. But it would take a media with some power to pull that off. Kim Jong-Il evidently puts little boxes with screens and speakers fueled by electricity in the homes of all of his citizens so he can communicate his views. That’s real power.

But Todd goes even farther. Not only is the press helpless, but any issue without a clear resolution should be avoided. I was honestly speechless when I first heard that claim. There’s nothing to say about that save to let it stand as a monument to incredibly stupidity (I don’t think Todd generally approaches life that way, but when confronted by a superior adversary, such laughable rationalizations are the predictable result of a desperate defense).

Todd happens to be one of the better reporters on the scene, which speaks volumes about the state of the Washington press corps. To reiterate why this issue is not a “political football” or “cable catnip,” as Greenwald mentions several times, around 100 detainees died in US custody, 34 of which are suspected or confirmed homicides.

All snark aside, our nation has rightly concluded that the way to solve these complicated issues is through an adherence to legal process. The Supreme Court does give advisory opinions, Bush could not have run the Yoo memos past a Justice, so the only way to deal with these problems is to adjudicate when it has become an actual case or controversy. If we decide that any issue that is both complicated and political cannot see a courtroom, we have destroyed that sacred legal process. Todd has it exactly wrong, it is the unclear, vague cases that must appear in a court.

Stop asking questions, damnit.

In 1575, Jerome Wolf wrote a letter to Tycho Brahe in which he observed, “No attack on Christianity is more dangerous than the infinite size and depth of the universe.”

Following the destruction of medieval superstition by revolutionaries like Copernicus, Galileo and Magellan, the intellectual community had to come to grips with how ill-informed Bible-based education had left them. For over a thousand years scripture stood as a complete, definitive source of knowledge. If it wasn’t in the Bible, it wasn’t worth knowing.

But as knowledge progressed it became obvious that not only was there a great deal of information missing from the Bible, but that it was functionally useless as a fountainhead of useable concepts. It could not be trusted. According to scripture, the world was flat, Jerusalem was the center, and the sun circled a mountain in the north. Not only does the Bible conveniently fail to mention the Earth’s position in the solar system, its rotation, and its true size, it has nothing to say about the vast distances between the stars. Beyond just the pure factual errors, there is no sense of proper age and size. 6000 years is all it offers, and there is no indication of anything but Heaven and Earth.

It was this vast gulf between what observation revealed and what he had been taught from religious authorities that motivated Wolf’s statement. How could God’s word be taken seriously if it left humanity so ill-equipped to understand the universe?

Yet today most religious people wouldn’t share Wolf’s discomfort. That sense of visceral conflict, with respect to the size of the universe, is completely gone. But why? Is it that we now have a better understanding of the Bible? I would argue that very little has substantively changed in the actual text or our understanding of its original meaning. No, we impose our advanced scientific knowledge on the ignorant document. Children who grow up in a world described primarily by science interpret the Bible to match that knowledge.

If the size of the universe no longer threatens Christianity, there are plenty of recent scientific discoveries that do. You could easily rewrite Wolf’s letter substituting evolution for “size and depth.” And every branch of science has conspired to ridicule the notion of a 6,000 year old planet. If Christianity is to survive as anything more than a cult, it will stop battling against these issues as it abandoned geo-centrism and infinity.

But this serves as a perfect model to understand the most fundamental difference between those that have promote the scientific method and those that seek to advance religion over science. One camp endevors to gain knowledge, the other holds that they are currently aware of everything worth knowing.

The recent re-popularization of the theist-atheist debate is striking for the complete lack of new arguments from the theist camp(I will use that term for brevity, acknowledging that there are deists in the world, but they don’t compose the majority). They quite literally advance the same positions that Hume dealt with 250 years ago. But this is precisely the point: they cannot develop new arguments because they deny the possibility of learning. They will forever be in the reactionary position. Science moves forward, often discovering facts that contradict religious documents, and theists can only complain about the results. They will not develop a new tool or instrument capable of viewing God, so they are stuck with what they have.

Thus they must construct their barricades around the areas that science has yet to enter definitively: how did the universe come into existence? How did life originate? Where does morality come from (arguably, science has given us a solid explanation for morality, but I will be charitable)? Theists jump on the lack of certainty in these areas as evidence that science itself is fatally flawed.

You’ll notice D’Souza using some slight of hand in this article to make a similar point. There are, he asserts, simply facts or concepts that are forever beyond the reach of science. He uses a Kantian argument holding that our experience of reality is not necessarily true reality to back his claim. According to Kant, we can only discuss the world we experience, and there is a world beyond our senses. There is no rational reason to conclude that these two versions of reality match.

I don’t want to delve too deeply into Kant (I remember getting caught in that quicksand as an undergrad), but I will say that there’s also no reason to think that the world isn’t as we experience it. Kant’s claim falls into a more general category of global skepticism that was popular among the modern philosophers. I could likewise maintain that there’s no way for me to prove that I’m not a brain in a vat in some laboratory and my experience of this world is being fed to me by scientists and computers stimulating my brain.

To this whole class of claims I simply say, fine, I suppose it’s possible, but whether it is or isn’t, in this world I experience, the scientific method yields results and religious belief doesn’t. Whatever actually happens to be the case, I am far better off basing my ideas on sturdy evidence than simply taking old fairy tales on faith: Antibiotics work, homeopathy doesn’t, science builds structures that stand, and prayer has no tangible effect. And, most importantly, there's still no evidence for or good reason to believe in God.

D’Souza makes a much slicker move, however. He uses this broad skepticism of reason to justify a belief in God. From an argumentative standpoint it’s ridiculous: the failure of one system does not necessarily entail the truth of another. The positive idea of God has to be substantiated with its own set of claims. It doesn’t simply materialize when a criticism of science is advanced any more than Mormonism becomes the true religion when we prove that Norse mythology was false.

But beyond that, there is a disgusting arrogance in D’Souza’s argument. The scientific method and rational inquiry, he claims, have limits. There are things it can never prove. And you know what? He just happens to be privy to all such knowledge. I could ask how, exactly, he knows about God and why the faculty that enables this knowledge is exempt from the Kantian limitations on human perception, but I am more struck by the preposterous conceit required to hold that view. He has gained through a special divine relationship what the generations of scientists who saved us from nature’s wrath by building a fortress of knowledge one tiny brick at a time can never know. He doesn’t need to test these ideas, prove them against critical reality, no, he simply knows.

But that is the most intellectual rendering of the anti-science argument. D’Souza is shrewd. Unlike many of his theist brethren, he has staked out a position that won’t be directly destroyed by scientific innovation. If you say that, for example, science can never tell us how life originated, you run the risk of being contradicted. If, however, you posit the existence of a magical world beyond science (one that conveniently never interacts) you can always maintain its existence. The failure of every real world iteration of faith can be dismissed and the central claim clung to.

But even with that rhetorical shrewdness D’Souza has defined his spiritual world as beyond science. He is thus constrained by the same inability to generate new arguments. His view is beyond progress, so it is stagnant. Though slightly more clever, D’Souza’s view essentially represents the notion that those subjects on which science hasn’t spoken, define its necessary, and eternal limitations.

History, however, shows that the unexplained areas of science lead to the most promising advances, not the collapse of the pursuit itself. But most importantly, those “gaps” in scientific understanding represent the venues for gaining future knowledge. Most scientists find them exciting and cannot wait to move ahead. But religious folk have decided they represent unanswerable questions that only a concept of god can fill. So they have built their bulwarks in front of those subjects, hoping in vain that adventurous minds will simply stop asking questions.

So where does this leave us? The theists have essentially announced that they posses sufficient knowledge, no progress is possible. Science has failed, and they understand God, so there’s no reason to move ahead. Adopting that stance means that you will never generate a new argument, and as we can see, there hasn’t been a new argument for God’s existence in many centuries.

And this midset has bled into politics. There are obvious problems on both sides of the aisle, but there is a basic difference, at least with the contemporary political groups. Currently, the left happens to be the party that operates on a model of identifying problems and searching for solutions. Too many Americans don’t have health care, the environment needs fixing, and the economy is harming the middle class. Then solutions are discussed and argued for. The American right seems to have two basic operating mandates: deny they are any problems and complain about potential solutions.

The examples are endless. We have McCain arguing that economy was fine, right-wing luminaries bragging about our very flawed health care system, and endless examples of shills pretending that global warming is a myth (no link for those fools). All of these positions require one to ignore evidence obtained by reasoned inquiry, whether the conclusions of climate scientists or assessments of our health services.

Just as theists claim to already know everything important, the political right believes that they have already discovered the perfect political/economic system. Simply place your faith in the free market and all will be fine. Any restrictions or regulations on market forces are a move away from the ideal. Thus, all progress is negative.

In order to sustain this idea you have to deny the existence of any complications and criticize any potential changes. Thus, like the anti-science groups, they have decided that progress is impossible. All there is to achieve has already been achieved.

Moving forward it’s important for political figures on the left to understand this basic fact of the right. “Bipartisanship” can never be reached with a group dedicated to objecting to all of your ideas—even the ones you’ve yet to express. My advice would be to simply allow them to throw tantrums and complain. Just like science will continue to yield useful results, a reasoned approach to governance will make life better. The progress-deniers can just die out, complaining as they fade away.

Getting Stuck by Junk Medicine

I was disappointed but hardly surprised when my mom directed me to an article in her local paper about acupuncture. The paper’s site has a subscription requirement (which would be fodder for another post as, unlike every other functionary on the internet after 1998, you cannot subscribe to the site with a credit card, you have to establish a direct deposit to you checking account—and people are puzzled about the failure of newspapers), so I will just quote the relevant portions.

The article was titled, “Sticking it to Traditional Medicine.” If that didn’t settle any doubts about the direction of the bias, the sub-heading reads, “Local chiropractor finds study of acupuncture rewarding.” So we have one voodoo artist, a chiropractor (who happens to be head of the Kansas Chiropractic Association), preaching about a different voodoo practice, acupuncture.

The article, which is primarily an advertisement for the chiropractor’s business (he recently received the necessary certification to practice acupuncture), is dripping with awe and reverence for the “5,000 year-old art.” I’m always amused by people using antiquity as a selling point for medical treatments. Because acupuncture is not science, it has no means of self-correction. It’s not like practitioners have discovered new ways to manipulate the body’s chi, because the body doesn’t have any. Thus, the “art” hasn’t discovered anything new in those 5,000 years. Sure, they might argue about different ways and places to stick the little needles, but they can’t give any sort of causal explanation for why. Nor have they ever attempted double blind studies aimed at sussing out the best methods. Thus, it exists fundamentally unchanged from its state 5,000 years ago. Imagine saying, “this toothpaste was used by the ancient Egyptians.” Wouldn’t the next reasonable question be, “what were their teeth like?”

That acupuncture has survived so long is interesting and impressive from a historical and cultural perspective, but think back to what life was like for a human 5,000 years ago. Hell, think about the state of medicine one hundred years ago. About 20% of children died before their first birthday, the average lifespan was around 40 years, and those that were lucky enough to make it into adulthood suffered from constant chronic pain. Acupuncture was available then, so why weren't people healthy?

How did traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, do against Yersinia pestis in the third pandemic in 1348-50? The Great Mortality blasted through China just as it did Europe, culling the population and bringing humanity closer to extinction than at any time since the last Ice Age. Yet I'm supposed to rely on these same treatments now?

The logic drives me insane. All of the wonderful gains in human health made over the past century should prove the uncontested superiority of Western medicine. But the substantive medical issues with acupuncture are being dealt with by researchers and scientists much more qualified than I, so I will move to focus on the sneaky argumentative techniques found in my mother's paper. It was informative in so far as it displayed a number of common techniques used by alt-med proponents to seduce new clients.

The article begins, as most of these things do, with a reasoned, science-minded man skeptical of the effectiveness of this alien healing method:

It was difficult to wrap my head around it, being educated in Western science. But once you’ve experienced it, you know that it really does work.

Now, it bears repeating that our champion of Western science is a chiropractor, so the science learnin’ clearly didn’t make much of an impression, or if it did, it didn’t stick. But we have our every-man to identify with. If he was skeptical and it worked for him, hell, it just might work for me! A quick survey of QVC will give you plenty of make-up caked women in floral patterned dresses using the same shtick to sell gaudy baubles and detergent.

But that’s not enough, we need some facts to back up our story:

No one knows for sure whether acupuncture works using the Chinese theory of chi or whether it is effective because of Western science’s suggestion that it uses the body’s own natural endorphans to combat pain. But the one thing most of the scientific community agrees upon is that acupuncture can be a beneficial form of treatment for a large variety of physical and mental issues.

Most of the scientific community? Hmm, that doesn’t sound right. The author defends this dubious claim by referencing two “studies.” The first is a 1997 National Institute of Health report. The author of the article doesn't give any specific citation, so I have to assume that she means this. It turns out that it wasn’t so much a report as a conference summary. The NIH invited a bunch of alt-med “researchers” to present their work. They didn’t manage to extend the courtesy to a single scientist who found negative results in studying acutpuncture.

So what we have is the exponential use of fake authority to cloud bad data. We begin with multiple alt-med proponents, each of whom cannot, on their own, present convincing evidence. A bunch of these individually inadequate shamans are gathered under the umbrella of the NIH (an organization with the word “health” right in the title), and their speeches are summarized and offered to the public as a “report” validating the usefulness of acupuncture. Now every reporter, student, or alt-med supporter can just read the abstract, cite the NIH, and claim that scientific studies prove the potency of acupuncture.

Unfotunately for the alt-med community, they seem to have as much trouble with math as they do with science. No matter how many powers it’s raised, when you start with zero, you end with zero.

Here's what the scientific community actually says about the practice:

Acupuncture is an unproven treatment. The best studies of acupuncture show that it is no more effective than placebos(inactive treatments.) The NIH panel was conceived in all likelihood with an agenda to promote the acceptance of acupuncture by the public, press, insurance plans, HMOs and Federal and state medical plans.

That was Dr. Wallace Sampson, M.D., Editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and Clinical Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.

The second, and most suspiciously, is a 2007 World Health Organization “data report” that cites “multiple scientific studies on the subject.” Because there was also no clear citation for that report, I was unable to find exactly what the author was talking about. I did, however, find a 2003 report by the WHO's Department of Essential Drugs and Medicine Policy. Assuming this is what the author was talking about, the report was burdened with a number of methodological errors, the most glaring of which being the mission statement by the report's author, Dr. Zhang, "...to show acupuncture works."

The rest of the Mercury article is directed at assuaging the public’s fear of needles. Apparently they aren’t as big and scary as the hypodermic ones we're used to. Whew.

So what we're left with is an advertisement published as a newspaper article with dubious citation and sham reports as supporting data. Standard operating procedure, it seems.