Good first paragraphs...

I like the way Richard Dawkins compares people who say evolution is a myth with similarly kooky folks (like Holocaust deniers) in his new book against Creationism titled 'The Greatest Show on Earth'.

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin. Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defence against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it.

From the Lone Star Looney bin

The great state of Texas that gave us the honorable President George Bush and a renewed focus on teaching creationism to schoolchildren is insisting on staying in the news with their latest idea:

Texas Considers Allowing Guns on Campuses

Considering their recent offerings, I could see this fitting into their grand strategic policy planning roadmap!

Julian Schnabel, 'St Francis in Ecstasy', 96" X 84", oil, plates, wood and puttywood, 1980. Photograph from a recent visit to the Mary Boone Gallery showing 'Image Matter', an exhibition curated by Klaus Kertess.

Chart porn

Percentage in various religious groups who agree that evolution is the best explanation for the origin of life on earth...

via Andrew Sullivan. Full article on religion/evolution here.

'If you meet Darwin on the road, kill him' chronicles

In an article that is sure to set creationists and evolutionists talking animatedly, Carl Safina (a SUNY professor) makes the argument that Darwinism and an ideological adherence to his ideas bred creationism and we should get away from a cultish following of Darwin’s ideas.

By propounding “Darwinism,” even scientists and science writers perpetuate an impression that evolution is about one man, one book, one “theory.” The ninth-century Buddhist master Lin Chi said, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” The point is that making a master teacher into a sacred fetish misses the essence of his teaching. So let us now kill Darwin. Science has marched on. But evolution can seem uniquely stuck on its founder. We don’t call astronomy Copernicism, nor gravity Newtonism. “Darwinism” implies an ideology adhering to one man’s dictates, like Marxism. And “isms” (capitalism, Catholicism, racism) are not science. “Darwinism” implies that biological scientists “believe in” Darwin’s “theory.” It’s as if, since 1860, scientists have just ditto-headed Darwin rather than challenging and testing his ideas, or adding vast new knowledge.

I am not quite saying Darwinism gave rise to creationism, though the “isms” imply equivalence. But the term “Darwinian” built a stage upon which “intelligent” could share the spotlight. Charles Darwin didn’t invent a belief system. He had an idea, not an ideology. The idea spawned a discipline, not disciples.

Pictures from a visit last year to Kate Clark's exhibition 'Perfect Strangers' at Claire Oliver.


Rhyming extracts from 'Stephen Jay Gould is my name' by Richard Milner

Oh! Stephen Jay Gould is my name
And fossils and shells are my game
Canadian shales
And Bahamian snails
Have brought me a measure of fame.

If Darwin is your cup of tea
But you don’t have a lot of time free
You don’t have to look
Through his wearisome book
You can learn evolution from me.

I can tell you a tale of a trial
Where Bryan and Darrow once tangled
A courtroom so laden with bile
That truth got distorted and mangled.
Fundamentalists shouted defiance,
“Darwinian textbooks must go,
The Bible contains all the science
A biology class needs to know!”

Try telling this to a creationist

From recent research on why life forms...

From here: In a recent study called “Why did life emerge?”, two scientists, son and father Arto Annila of the University of Helsinki and Erkki Annila of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, offer some insight into the general driving force of life’s origins in terms of thermodynamics. As they explain, all organisms are composed of molecules that assemble together via numerous chemical reactions. Just as heat flows from hot to cold, these molecules obey the universal tendency to diminish energy differences, so that the most likely chemical reactions are those in which energy flows “downhill” toward a stationary state, or chemical equilibrium.
Although the researchers don’t speculate on the specific chemical reactions that created life, they explain that the molecules involved most likely underwent a series of more and more complex reactions to minimize mutual energy differences between matter on Earth and with respect to high-energy radiation from Sun. The process eventually advanced so far that it cumulated into such sophisticated functional structures that could be called living. “The most important idea in our study is that there is no distinction between animate and inanimate,” Arto Annila told PhysOrg.com. “Processes of life are, in their principles, no different from any other natural processes.” In this sense, life is a very natural thing, which emerged simply to satisfy basic physical laws. Our “purpose,” so to speak, is to redistribute energy on the Earth, which is in between a huge potential energy difference caused by the hot Sun and cold space.

Image shows the Z+ end of the CMS tracker (part of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN).

Texas hold'em chronicles

In the continuing Texas hold'em series (first one posted here and more here), this is one on creationism.

From the Times: Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

Here are interesting viewpoints from the chairman of the Texas education board, Dr. Don McLeroy:

On Evolution: I just don’t think it’s true.

On Geology: Earth’s appearance is a recent geologic event — thousands of years old, not 4.5 billion.

On Religion: I believe a lot of incredible things. The most incredible thing I believe is the Christmas story. That little baby born in the manger was the god that created the universe.

Circle of Pietro Ricchi Il Lucchese (1606 - 1676), 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony of Padua', oil on canvas, 36" X 52"

Musings on our current affairs

Bill Clinton in a derogatory and a highly manipulative statement last month said that black vote will go to Obama and the women will vote for Clinton (before the primaries in South Carolina). The facts stated otherwise and blacks and women seemed to vote for Barak in that primary. Mr Barak has gone onto to win about 11 states in a row after Bill Clinton made that statement. I really do not care who wins (we could live comfortably with either of Barak or Clinton after the current quagmire), but it is educational to think that had the reverse have happened (if Hillary would have won wins 11 states in a row), Barack would have been counted as a nobody who ran a empty, defunct campaign...

On the economic front, Henry Paulson, the current Treasury secretary, does not seem to have as much as a clue on how to strategically look at his current job (he used to look after the top job at Goldman Sachs before this). While he worked a bit in renegotiating mortgages and putting together a fund to deal with structured investment vehicles (both produced as a result of lax governmental oversight that produced the sub prime mortgage mess), the efforts seem to be too little, too late and not indicative of an individual who is supposed to be endowed with strategic thoughts on how best to lead the country out of this mess. Now it is clear that the sub prime mortgage debacle (talked about in this blog multiple times) is turnign out to be a side story with the main story turning out to be the fact that the credit markets are being sucked dry of any or all available credit. Without credit, companies will not invest in any new initiatives, leading to layoffs, leading to a higher rate of unemployment, leading to reduced consumer spending /confidence, leading to a further reduction in available financing options and so on - a deadly spiral.
Added on top of these woes, it seems that about 25 percent (see graph of projections here) of American homeowners will see zero or negative equity in their homes (think about how you would feel if you were told that the 500,000 dollar home you bought three years ago is only worth about 250,000 now, but you still need to make mortgage payments on the original amount and you have would have to make additional payments on the home equity line of credit that you took out believing in the bullish predictions two years back)... The New York Times states: 'Not since the Depression has a larger share of Americans owed more on their homes than they are worth. With the collapse of the housing boom, nearly 8.8 million homeowners, or 10.3 percent of the total, are underwater'. All of this points to a lack of clear strategic thinking both at the Federal Reserve and at the Treasury.

In other developments, it is indeed sweet that the erstwhile dictator of Pakistan, General Musharraf (now morphed through tremendous self preservative powers into the role of President of Pakistan) has finally been dealt with an electoral verdict that tells him 'enough is enough'. Of course, he is now seen making funny noises that include words like 'harmonious coalition' after his party was roundly smacked at the polls. Yesterday's news that Nawaz Sharif (himself a wily one) and Asif Zardari (propelled into the limelight after the assasination of his wife, Ms. Bhutto) will form a hopeful alliance is indeed heartening. It is also sweet that the new alliance will also reinstate the judges (including the Chief Justice Chaudhary) who were summararily removed by Musharraf because they did not toe the official, corrupt line. Payback is sweet. On the other hand, this might be a bit of a problem for India as the militancy in Kashmir was held in check by some of the hard-line policies adopted by Mr. Musharraf – but then, after a point, one can only endure so many undemocratic actions until one is tired of the compromises and starts to opt for any change (kind of like the elections here, right?).
Also sweet is the fact that Kosovo has declared independence (talked about in Simplistic here) and America has put its full weight behind the same. It is about time the cultural and political underdogs in the Balkans got their due. Of course, as expected, Russia and the Bosnian Serbs in the north of Kosovo seems to be wagging their long tails, but this moment indeed belongs to Kosovo.
In other news, it is a good thing that Mr. Moqtada al Sadr has agreed to tamp down on his militia and agreed to a cease fire for another six months giving that much more time for the Iraqi lawmakers to get their act together. One of the many reasons the surge succeeded was because the Shiite Mahdi militia had agreed to a cease fire over the last six months. Looks like this might indeed work…
The battle against Creationism was dealt another blow when the state of Florida agreed to substantiate the study of evolution as a ‘scientific’ study rather than just another theory that rivals the creationist theory.
After camping out in Kenya for a month, former chief of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan finally seems to have brokered a truce between Mr. Kibaki (the declared winner after a rigged election) and Mr. Odinga (the aggrieved loser). Both sides have tentatively agreed to create a prime ministerial post for Mr. Odinga, but are yet to agree on its terms and responsibilities. When Mr. Kofi Annan made news that he was flying out to Kenya to try and broker an accord, I had thought that here is another individual aiming to do a fly-by and get some good press karma for stopping momentarily and spouting the right things, but he seems to have stuck it out there, endured the warring sides and after about a month, the results are slowly filtering to the top … Great stuff… That’s really all I have time for now, but I hope to do a similar round up every month – let’s see.