Response to a fellow Green

My friend and fellow Green James O'Keefe recently posted a letter from Jeremy Cannon, explaining why he was voting green in this election. This is a passionate and well written letter. My response is as follows:

I have a couple of issues with this letter, well written and earnestly offered as it is.

First, as one of many people who volunteered for Ralph Nader in 2000 and worked as a staffer on the campaigns of 3 Greens running for state office,I understand how Jeremy feels. I agree that Democrats, even liberal ones, fall far short of our ideals.

However, I have to say that any similarities between McCain and Obama are superficial at best. I've heard this refrain before. It was wrong in 2000, and it's wrong now. If you think there is no difference between McCain and Obama, the Democrats and Republicans, you're simply not seeing the world as it is. Democrats are not as progressive as Greens, but they are very different from republicans.

As for your comment:
"I, no longer, have to wonder what will happen to the poor family that can't afford healthcare, the working mom that just can't make enough money, the gay couple ready to tie the knot, the brother in Iraq, the children who need to learn, the conversations I have in private, the planet I love to live on, the money I spend, the people I vote for, and the unchecked corporate fat cats that have squandered our future for their own gain."

I assure you, if you truly care about these issues, and I believe you do, John McCain's presence in the White House will be disastrous, far more than an Obama presidency. You DO have to worry about these issues. Voting Green doesn't give you a free pass. Until we Greens can build upon our successes at the local and to a lesser extent state level, we won't be able to be effective players on the National scene. Voting for someone who can't win may seem like a principled act, I know from experience that it certainly feels that way. But, in an election that is this important,that will likely be decided by razor thin margins and be marred by voting irregularities , every vote can make a difference.

Jeremy, I share your passion for Green politics and values.I understand how you feel. Many Greens I know are deeply conflicted about this election. I urge you to consider your choices carefully. I hope on November 5th we can talk about these issues without a Republican victory hanging over our heads.

Posted by: Tennis Lilly

Vote your hopes, not your fears on Tuesday

Shockingly, the (Lawrence) Eagle Tribune has endorsed John McCain, for President, citing the very real threat of terrorism and an increasingly hostile global village that the United States inhabits. The Eagle Tribune editorial states that the first role of a President is that of Commander-in Chief, a role that John McCain does appear to be uniquely well suited for. Eagle Tribune columnist Taylor Armerding in a similarly surprising twist, admonishes voters to vote against Obama to defend against the imposition of socialism on the rugged individuals who, while being less than 10 percent of the citizenry, apparently are the only ones who mater in the mythological laissez-faire libertarian paradise that Mr. Armerding believes once existed in America.

The choices in this election are stark despite what my Green Party brethren insist are the core similarities between Democrats and Republicans. While I do not regret campaigning for Ralph Nader in 2000 (nor do I accept blame for Al Gore’s defeat), We progressives could not have been more wrong about the real differences between Bush and Gore in 2000. I hope Greens and progressives will not be so blind to these contrasts on Tuesday. None of the issues Greens are concerned with will be well served by a protest vote, especially one that, if you are in New Hampshire or another swing state, may well help John McCain.

Voting for McCain/Palin will mean years of military overspending and no clear end to the War in Iraq, while Al-Qaeda, our mortal enemy, roams free in Afghanistan. With at least 2 likely openings on the U. S. Supreme court, far more than a woman’s right to reproductive freedom is at stake. Everything from Labor rights (the few we have left) to the governments regulatory authority over food and drugs, workplace safety, the environment and the financial industries will be threatened. With the very real chance that John McCain may succumb to any number of health problems during his first term, the very idea of a Sarah Palin presidency should frighten any truly patriotic citizen. Should Sarah Palin with her extreme right wing beliefs assume the presidency, she would likely be used as a stalking horse by the far right to advance a neo-conservative ideology that boarders on fascism.

John McCain is an honorable man who has served our nation with incredible bravery and honor. No one can doubt his patriotism and his good intent. Unfortunately John McCain simply is not the man to be our next president.

Barack Obama is that man and his platform of change is desperately needed in America. If you are concerned about the environment, access to health care for all citizens, reproductive choice, social justice, education reform, meaningful economic opportunity, ending the senseless war in Iraq and restoring America’s greatness and leadership on the global stage, Barack Obama deserves your vote. America needs your vote for Barack.

The Eagle Tribune is wrong on an important point; the most important job of the president is to lead. The greatest need this country has is to rebuild its civic culture, to reclaim our role as the greatest democracy. We need to grow what Ralph Nader called a “deep, deliberative democracy” yet again. America’s greatest challenges come not from an enemy outside out boarders. but our own complacency and atrophied civic institutions. We need to create a 21st century “New Deal” liberalism and restore genuine prosperity to ALL Americans, not just the top 10 percent that Taylor Armerding seems so concerned with.

I hope you will join me, Michelle and my daughter Desiree (voting in her first election) in supporting Barack Obama on Tuesday.

P. S. Please….vote NO on Question 1 and YES on Questions 2 & 3.

Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit"

For future reference. Reposted from Skeptic Magazine online as quoted from "A Demon Haunted World"



HomeSkepticism

October, 2002

In his book, "The Demon-Haunted World", Carl Sagan provides tools for skeptical thinking. This excellent list is a strong tool to weed out the bad seeds in science.

Quoting ad verbatim:

Tools

• Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the "facts".
  

• Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
  

• Arguments from authority carry little weight - "authorities" have made mistakes in the past.
  They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

• Spin more than one hypothesis.
  If there's something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among "multiple working hypotheses," has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you have simply run the with first idea that caught your fancy.

• Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it's yours.
  It's only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don't, others will.

• Quantify.
  If whatever it is you're explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you'll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are thruths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.

• If there's a chain of argument,everylink in the chain must work (including the premise) - not just most of them.
  

• Occam's Razor.
  This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.

• Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified.
  Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle - an electron, say - in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.

Fallacies

• Ad hominem.
  Latin for "to the man", attacking the arguer and not the argument. E.g., The Reverend Dr. Smith is a known Biblical fundamentalist, so her objections to evolution need not be taken seriously.

• Argument from authority.
  E.g., President Richard Nixon should be re-elected because he has a secret plan to end the war in Southeast Asia - but because it was secret, there was no way for the electorate to evaluate it on its merits; the argument amounted to trusting him because he was President; a mistake, as it turned out.

• Argument from adverse consequences.
  E.g., A God meting out punishment and reward must exist, because if He didn't, society would be much more lawless and dangerous - perhaps even ungovernable.

  Or: The defendant in a widely publicized murder trial must be found guilty; otherwise, it will be an encouragement for other men to murder their wives.

• Appeal to ignorance.
  The claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. E.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist - and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe.

  Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.
  This impatience with ambiguity can be critized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

• Special pleading.
  Often to rescue a proposition in deep rhetorical trouble.

  E.g., How can a merciful God condemn future generations to torment because, against orders, one woman induced one man to eat an apple?
  Special plead: You don't understand the subtle Doctrine of Free Will.

  Or: How can there be an equally godlike Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the same person?
  Special plead: You don't understand the Divine Mystery of the Trinity.

  Or: How could God permit the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - each in their own way enjoined to heroic measures of loving kindness and compassion - to have perpetrated so much cruelty for so long?
  Special plead: You don't understand Free Will again. And anyway, God moves in mysterious ways.

• Begging the question.
  Also called assuming the answer. E.g., We must institute the death penalty to discourage violent crime. But does the violent crime rate in fact fall when the death penalty is imposed?

  Or: The stock market fell yesterday because of a technical adjustment and profit-taking by investors. But is there any independent evidence for the causal role of "adjustment" and profit-taking; have we learned anything at all from this purported explanation?

• Observational selection.
  Also called the enumeration of favorable circumstances, or as the philosopher Francis Bacon described it, counting the hits and forgetting the misses. E.g., A state boasts of the Presidents it has produced, but is silent on its serial killers.

• Statistics of small numbers.
  A close relative of observational selection. E.g., They say 1 out of 5 people is Chinese. How is this possible? I know hundreds of people, and none of them is Chinese.

  Or: I've thrown three sevens in a row. Tonight I can't lose.

• Misunderstanding of the nature of statistics.
  E.g., President Dwight Eisenhower expressing astonishment and alarm on discovering that fully half of all Americans have below average intelligence.

• Inconsistency.
  E.g., Prudently plan for the worst of which a potential military adversary is capable, but thriftly ignore scientific projections on environmental dangers because they're not "proved".

  Or: Attribute the declining life expectancy in the former Soviet Union to the failures of communism many years ago, but never attribute the high infant mortality rate in the United States (now highest of the major industrial nations) to the failures of capitalism.

  Or: Consider it reasonable for the Universe to continue to exist forever into the future, but judge absurd the possibility that it has infinite duration into the past.

• Non Sequitur.
  Latin for "It doesn't follow". E.g., Our nation will prevail because God is great. But nearly every nation pretends this to be true; the German formulation was "Gott mit uns". Often those falling into the non sequitur fallacy have simply failed to recognize alternative possibilities.

• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
  Latin for "It happened after, so it was caused by". E.g., Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila: "I know of...a 26-year-old who looks 60 because she takes [contraceptive] pills."

  Or: Before women got the vote, there were no nuclear weapons.

• Meaningless question.
  E.g., What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? But if there is such a thing as an irresistible force there can be no immovable objects, and vice versa.

• Excluded middle, or False Dichotomy.
  Considering only the two extremes in a continuum of intermediate possibilities. E.g., Sure, take his side; my husband's perfect; I'm always wrong.

  Or: Either you love your country or you hate it.

  Or: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

• Short-term vs. long-term.
  A subset of the excluded middle, but so important I've pulled it out for special attention. E.g., We can't afford programs to feed malnourished children and educate pre-school kids. We need to urgently deal with crime on the streets.

  Or: Why explore space or pursue fundamental science when we have so huge a budget deficit?

• Slippery slope.
  Related to excluded middle. E.g., If we allow abortion in the first weeks of pregnancy, it will be impossible to prevent the killing of a full-term infant.
  Or, conversely:If the state prohibits abortion even in the ninth month, itwill soon be telling us what to do with our bodies around the time of conception.

• Confusion of correlation and causation.
  E.g., A survey shows that more college graduates are homosexual than those with lesser education; therefore education makes people gay.

  Or: Andean earthquakes are correlated with closest approaches of the planet Uranus; therefore - despite the absence of any such correlation for the nearer, more massive planet Jupiter - the latter causes the former.

• Straw man.
  Caricaturing a position to make it easier to attack. E.g., Scientists suppose that living things simply fell together by chance - a formulation that willfully ignores the central Darwinian insight, that Nature ratches up by saving what works and discarding what doesn't.
  Or - this is also a short-term/long-term fallacy - environmentalists care more for snail darters and spotted owls than they do for people.

• Suppressed evidence, or half-truths.
  E.g., An amazingly accurate and widely quoted "prophecy" of the assasination attempt on President Reagan is shown on television; but - an important detail - was it recorded before or after the event?

  Or: These government abuses demand revolution, even if you can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Yes, but is this likely to be a revolution in which for more people are killed than under the previous regime? What does the experience of other revolutions suggest? Are all revolutions against oppressive regimes desirable and in the interests of the people?

• Weasel words.
  E.g., The separation of powers of the U.S. Constitution specifies that the United States may not conduct a war without a declaration by Congress. On the other hand, Presidents are given control of foreign policy and the conduct of wars, which are potentially powerful tools for getting themselves re-elected. Presidents of either political party may therefore be tempted to arrange wars while waving the flag and calling the wars something else - "police actions," "armed incursions," "protective reaction strikes," "pacification," "safeguarding American interests," and a wide variety of "operations," such as "Operation Just Cause." Euphemisms for war are on of a broad class of reinventions of language for political purposes. Talleyrand said, "An important art of politicians is to find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the public".

Dear Ben Stein,

Dear Ben Stein,

I had the misfortune of seeing your "documentary" Expelled on opening day at the Leow's theater in Methuen, MA. Let me state from the outset that your film was one of the worst I've ever sat through. The constant cutting from interview segments to snippets of the holocaust, the construction of the Berlin Wall, 1950's educational film footage, science fiction movies etc. was not just annoying, it was childish. I expect such production techniques from a Saturday morning children's program, not a documentary claiming to take on the corrupt scientific establishment.

The factual errors in your film are many. They go to the very heart of your argument and are well documented. This isn't a matter of conflicting opinion, you are lying to people. Enough has been said about Expelled already, I won't belabor the point by reciting the myriad of falsehoods you foist on an American movie-going public that is, sadly, scientifically illiterate. The most damning aspect of your film is also the most absurd, the belief that acceptance of the scientific truth of evolution lead to the rise of fascism and the holocaust. Implicit in all of this of course is that, while you claim the conflict between "Darwinism" and "Intelligent Design" is purely about science, you make the case throughout the film that evolution is a denial of God, and pure empirical science a rejection of religion. Sadly, this isn't an original argument. Dinesh D'souza constantly makes this "Atheism leads Nazi's, Communism etc."argument, though admittedly in a more eloquent fashion. I can think of no assertion more intellectually or morally bankrupt.

What more can I say Mr. Stein? You lie, fabricate, misquote and mislead the viewer throughout your film. You deceived many of the credible scientists appearing in your film in order to secure their interviews. You stole sophisticated animation depicting cell biology. You used at least 2 pieces of copyrighted music for your film without permission.You staged the speaking event at the opening of your film and the incident where you were "thrown out" of the Smithsonian. I expected a documentary, I got science fiction. The Blair Witch Project was a more honest (and better made) film than Expelled.

I would ask for a refund,but given your demonstrated dishonesty, you'd probably claim you didn't make the film.

I can't believe I paid money to see that...

OK...so I saw Expelled today. I'm still trying to digest it. I don't think I've ever been so offended by a movie before. I'm not ready to write a critique yet but suffice it to say that Expelled is the biggest piece of shit I've ever had to sit through. More later ,but trust me, It's worse that I thought it would be.

FAUX weather, just as bad as FAUX news.

Just when you thought it was safe to watch the weather report on your LOCAL station, it becomes clear that the "foxifacation" of news even extends to the weather. Check out Kevin Lemanowicz's blog on MyFoxBoston. Now, as we all know, weather and climate are two very different things. When meteorologists start opining on climatology, hold on to your hats. Lets hit just a couple of the flaws in poor Kevin's argument. First, Kevin seems to be unsure if a. climate change is happening and b. if human activity is causing it. Well it's been fairly well established that a. the climate is changing in ways unprecedented during the current geological age and that b. human generated Green House Gases are the cause. Kevin would do well to visit our friends at Real Climate or peruse the IPCC 4th assessment report.

Kevin also seems in a tizzy about the "disrespect"sic of Dr. Bill Gray, a respected hurricane forecaster who seems not to mind being in over his head on climate change. Dr.Gray likes to snipe from the stands apparently and in my pinion, got exactly what he deserved. Dr.Gray is no longer content with hurricane forecasting and likes to dabble in global warming denial. Dr.Gray is free, as is any other scientists in the contrarian camp, to submit his ideas to peer reviewed journals. He, like Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer, are free to submit their earth shattering research proving global warming to be a sham. The only problem is, they don't.

The arguments over climate change and hurricane activity are pretty heated and this seems to be one of the areas where there is genuine debate and disagreement. Does this debate have anything to do with the basic, factual premise that the earth is warming because of our GHG emissions? In a word, no.

As for arguments that climate models are inadequate, this article on realclimate.org seems to address that fallacy. The fact is,the more research we do, the clearer it becomes that climate models are pretty accurate.

Kevin Lemanowicz's real crime here isn't that he has an opinion, or even a poorly informed one. The problem is that he's a respected public figure with scientific credentials who is misleading the public. By providing only his opinion, and short video snippet from a conference without explaining the context or providing an evenhanded treatment of this complex subject, Mr Lemanowicz mislead the public and gave then a poorly written, 4th grade level commentary. At a minimum, Mr Lemanowicz should have provided a link to some objective, primary source material (as I have here).

"Expelled" flunks out.

We will be hearing quite a bit about Ben Stein's new "documentary", Expelled this week. The controversial film opens on April 18th at selected theaters nationwide and, lucky us, one of those selected theaters is the Loews theater at the Loop in Methuen.

Now...I am loathe to talk about a film I haven't seen and given the thrashing I gave many global warming deniers who savaged An Inconvenient Truth without seeing it, I think I'm obliged to see the film before offering a critique. I hate the idea of forking over hard earned money for a propaganda piece and I'm hoping some intrepid soul will "hook me up" with a bootleg. That being said, there are resources aplenty from people in the scientific community who have seen advanced copies and the most damning reviews come from the staff at one of America's most esteemed magazines, Scientific American (S.A. is not a peer reviewed science journal but it's editors, writers and contributers are scientists and science journalists and S.A. is very highly regarded by the scientific community). The S.A. website has an entire section devoted to the film. Most damning, and revealing, is a complete, unedited discussion (mp3 format) of the film between the editorial staff and Expelled associate producer, Mark Mathis.

Since I haven't seen the film yet I won't offer any commentary on it's merits, or lack thereof. I promise a review will be forthcoming. I do want to make one point. The manufactured controversy over evolution vs creationism/intelligent design is getting far more traction that is should. If there were anything of merit to ID, any empirical evidence, anything that could be seen or observed in nature, anything that could be tested or quantified, anything you could model, ID would be given very serious attention by scientists and laypersons alike. The problem here is that ID and creationism (they really are the same thing) aren't scientific concepts. ID isn't a theory or a hypothesis, it's not supported by evidence, it doesn't adequately explain anything we observe in nature. The appearance of design isn't evidence of design. ID is merely a scientific sounding way to sneak GOD into the classroom.

One thing is clear, the theory of evolution is the only rational, scientific explanation for the rise and speciation of life on earth. Every living thing on earth, from microbes in soil to human beings, descended from simple, single celled organisms, growing in primordial ooze over 2 billion years ago. As Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". To claim that the universe and specifically (and especially) man, must have been designed, is an extraordinary claim, one that is not supported by anything other than human conceit and fear.

I'll have more, much more, once I've seen the film.