dangerous liberty

Conservative Christian Comedian Brad Stine was featured on Nightline just now. They treated him quite fairly. I’m going to have to tune back into NL now that Ted is gone…

In the post Conservatives Against Intelligent Design, Indian Cowboy reveals the astounding ignorance of what ID proposes which is sadly so common among those who oppose it, especially those who do so because they consider it a “perversion of science”.

I’ve looked at his prior posts and see nothing indicating depth where this issue is concerned. The rub with ID proponents isn’t and has never been ‘evolution’, but the Darwinian inference those changes and ultimately life itself is a result of undirected mutations and chance. This is not provable by any experimental standard Indian Cowboy would consider good science. I’d challenge him and others to point me to the experiment designed to observe random and undirected mutations over vast time without any intelligence influencing the mutations!

From a blog entry I wrote a few months back:

When critics dismiss ID arguments out of hand as ‘not Science’, they attempt a pass on addressing the arguments that are being put forward for this theory.

If one were to study intelligence and come up with general rules or properties of intelligence, would critics consider that science? If they were then to apply those rules to observable and documented processes or structures in nature (for instance, the ATP synthase motor), is that science?

The fact is, critics do not know if the micro-evolutionary process of adaptation is built in (ie ‘designed’) or if it is part of a larger purposeless process. They start with the premise it must be the latter and circle around to prove their original premise.

NDE proponents do not know that natural processes account for the origin of life. That is simply a matter of their own faith! Got gaps? Natural selection or infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters eventually producing the works of the old Bard is the answer!

I’m wide open to science and believe in the scientific method and the rigor of review and critique. It is critical to a decent understanding of our physical world. But I also know that with humans, the philosophic framework by which we view the world around us informs our conclusions about that world. Naturalists deny this when they deny their faith in science to provide the answers and their faith that observable, quantifiable nature is the means to all ends of understanding.

The bottom line? Critics should practice a little more intellectual honesty with their own faith based narrative and acknowledge the science upon which the nascent ID movement draws the design inference.

Intelligent Design is more a modifyier of Evolutionary Theory (in all its forms), than a replacement. I know of few ID proponents who discount the mountains of science showing the earth and universe to be very old and living things to undergo change over that time.

Is anyone game for polite exchange on the topic? Help resurrect this old post on my forum and join in!

Read the rest of this entry »

George Reisman powerfully comments on The Sorry State of Our Union (HT: Luskin):

… one leading and downright terrifying fact stands out. And that is that the people’s elected representives do not know what the government is doing. The government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. The people’s elected representatives are supposed to be in control of that government in the name of the people they represent. That is their job.

The situation we are in, and have been in for several generations, is one in which intelligent, representative government is increasingly impossible, simply because of the sheer size and scope of government. If we want a government that is controlled by our representatives, we need a government that is sufficiently limited in size and scope for it to be humanly possible for our representatives to know and understand what it is doing and what is being suggested that it do.

For the people’s representatives to regain control of the government, its size and scope must be radically reduced.

Reisman concludes

Comparisons to train wrecks hardly do justice to what’s at stake. It’s the wreckage of our country that is waiting to happen, and has been happening. And it’s been happening and will continue to happen for the very simple reason that the government of the United States is out of control in the most literal sense. It is out of the control of the American people and their elected representatives. That control must be reestablished.

This is absolutely true, but how? Where is the plan? Who is doing the right thing? How to bring out the libertarian in John Q. Public? Individualism and self-reliance are no longer attitudes of most Americans, there is a general acceptance of governmental control and now nasty fights over who gets to legislate morality.

Have a look at the Flexible woman. How to describe it in a word? Insectish.

Katrina: What the Media Missed by Lou Dolinar at RCP.

Lou reports on the heroic actions of the National Guard during Katrina, noting the lack of media attention to this incrediblly under-reported story:

Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?

Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there.

From the Dome, the Louisiana Guard’s main command ran at least 2,500 troops who rode out the storm inside the city, a dozen emergency shelters, 200-plus boats, dozens of high-water vehicles, 150 helicopters, and a triage and medical center that handled up to 5,000 patients (and delivered 7 babies). The Guard command headquarters also coordinated efforts of the police, firefighters and scores of volunteers after the storm knocked out local radio, as well as other regular military and other state Guard units.

As I recall, the predominant images from the Superdome were not of arriving helicopters, but of complaining survivors…

Dolinar’s post is lengthy and will make you proud to be American, because the US Military has perhaps the most intelligent logistical operations. Ever.

Watch this short video of Michelin’s Revolutionary Airless Tires. They are called ‘tweels’.

Related info here and here.

George Reisman writes about Gasoline at 10 Cents a Gallon and Falling, giving an example of the relative effects of inflation. (Hat tip, Luskin)

Luskin notes inflation isn’t rising prices, but a declining dollar. I would add that inflation is literally inflation of the money supply, which dilutes the overall purchasing power fo the currency in that supply, which makes the individual units worth less.

One of the paleos over at Mises.org once illustrated this by noting that a $20 gold dollar would buy you a custom tailored suit 100 years ago. The value of that same weight of gold today will buy you a custom tailored suit as well!

(Note to self: convert paper money to something less prone to devaluation as soon as you get it)

Nifty little networking feature for the blog group Life, Liberty, Property. Thanks to Eric for setting it up!

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Power Line gets it.

Donald Luskin on the 2003 Tax Cut on Capital Gains Entirely Paying for Itself on NRO Financial. A well-supported analysis.