Just in case you missed it, from Tim Blair.
The role of science explained
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Category Archives: Philosophical and speculative
Why d’Souza is being prosecuted
Here is the premise of the modern critique of America, that “America is based on theft”. It is not just in America, of course, that this critique is found but is found everywhere and certainly no modern prosperous nation state is free of the ignorant fools who argue these views. It is to deal with this critique that the film has been put together. As d’Souza says in this trailer:
I want to take this progressive leftist critique head on. I want it to be articulated by its best spokesmen. And I want to effectively answer it and debunk it. That is the central ideological question answered in the film, ‘America’.
D’Souza has now been railroaded into the court system by the most corrupt, lawless government in American history, a travesty of honesty and fair play. The video heralds the release of a film on the fourth of July that is in part an attempt avant la lettre to explain why he is being prosecuted.
Economic definitions
I am two days away from finally sending the manuscript of the 2nd edition of my Free Market Economics off to the publisher. What do academics do when they aren’t teaching? This, at least, is what one of them has done. But for interest and comment, I am putting the following up which I have just finished writing not five minutes ago. It will be at the very start of the book, right after the preface which I will get to as soon as I finish this section on the definitions.
And I hope you all have as much fun on this long weekend as I hope to have myself.
Before venturing into the full text before you, it is useful to have a few definitions in your mind. The language of economics is entirely made up of words that have ordinary meanings in everyday life. But these words, when they cross over into economics, suddenly take on very specific meanings that can cause someone to lose the thread during an economic discussion. We therefore provide a series of definitions of the specialised words used in the text. Having at least a preliminary grasp of these words and their more technical meaning will also in itself provide a grounding in the nature of the economic theory you will meet in the rest of the book.
Economics often looks easy because everyone already thinks they understand what’s going on in an economy without even having to study. Not true at all. For an economist it is painful to hear the mistakes that those who have not studied economics to at least a reasonable depth constantly make. But there are also major differences in the conclusions different economists reach and these are often at a very deep level that no lay person could possibly resolve.
This text will teach you everything you will find in studying economics in a normal, usual way. But it also provides a second perspective that has been taken from the economic theories that were dominant during the nineteenth century. But unlike with the natural sciences, economic theory does not progress to higher plains and then remain there. Economic theory is infused with the hopes and wishes of policy makers and of those who study the subject who are predisposed to some particular point of view. People just wish the world was one way when the way things are turn out to be something else again, and their wishes cause them to accept economic theories that are not properly grounded in the way the world actually is.
The definitions found here are already pointing in a particular direction. The very first definition is “entrepreneur”. These are the people who run our businesses and often, if they are successful, become very wealthy as a result. As this book will explain, entrepreneurially-managed firms are the foundation for wealth and prosperity for an entire community but also for personal freedom and independence from government. Economic attitudes are often determined by one’s reactions to entrepreneurs running our firms. Some people don’t agree that we should allow people to run firms any way they like as long as they follow the law. Some people think that governments should run our businesses or at least our major businesses. Or if they don’t run them should have a major say in what they do.
These are, of course, philosophical and political issues that are absolutely part of economics when thought about in the widest sense, but are not part of what gets taught at the introductory level when starting out on economic theory. Yet this is the foundational point. Economics, as we teach it and learn it today, assumes that most of what is produced is produced by businesses independent of governments and are run by entrepreneurs for a profit. These businesses sell goods and services on a market and these goods and services are bought by consumers with money they have for the most part earned by providing either their own labour or some other input into the production of some other good or service. How this process works in detail is what the study of economic theory is about.
Life is like a jar filled with golf balls
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles roll ed into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous ‘yes.’ The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed.. ‘Now,’ said the professor as the laughter subsided, ‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things—-your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—-and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.. The sand is everything else—-the small stuff. ‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’ he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and mow the lawn. Take care of the golf balls first—-the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand. One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, ‘I’m glad you asked.’ The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.
From Instapundit
More on cats
Now that I have discovered through the Time Magazine quiz that cats indicate that someone is to the left, I take a more jaundiced eye to the little freeloader that we have taken in. Here is a further continuation of the same story as before but under this innocent title Research Claims Your Cat Thinks You’re Just Another (Big!) Cat but which then goes on:
Sure, cats are as cute as the next fuzzy mammal and kittens are all-out adorable, but felines enjoy hunting and killing things, and they don’t seem to care much for humans either. Unlike the ‘I’ll-love-you-and-be-your-best-friend-forever-no-matter-what!’ enthusiasm you get from a dog, cats always seem to be giving me the side eye, and in turn, I usually feel the need to give it right back.
Cats are wild animals and independent. What more could anyone else ask for to share their lives with?
A quiz to test whether you are politically left or right
It should be noted that Catallaxy is not a libertarian blog but “libertarian and centre-right”. This seemed to matter, indeed irritate some people such as when I expressed my own serious misgivings about the legalisation of marijuana in Colorado. My main point, although not expressed as well as it might – but it is an old point of mine – was that the media will throw the book at someone depending on their politics. It has nothing to do with the issue itself, only the person involved. Rob Ford they don’t like so the book gets thrown. Nigella Lawson they do like so she is given a free pass.
In an era of possibly the most blatant and disturbing presidential malfeasance in history, it is Chris Christie, an almost-Democrat in every respect other than brand name, who was pilloried for what is a minor misdemeanor but not for a Republican. As I used to point out in 2012, it was a miracle that Mitt Romney had led such a blameless life that the normal slangs and arrows of American politics could generally evade him. Christie should be a reminder just how hard it will be to get a non-Democrat elected anytime soon. Not absolutely impossible, but unbelievably and unnecessarily hard.
As far as illegal drugs go, there is a case to be made on both sides but it is hardly cut and dried. And whatever you might say about grass and hash, to use the terms of my youth, you would be a lot more reluctant to say the same about heroin and cocaine, or at least you should be but who knows. LSD anyone? Any or all of these sold in high school tuck shops or across the road? No lines anywhere laid down by the community? Not for me, but maybe for you.
Anyway, here is a quiz that says it can assess your political orientation between left and right. It’s been put together by Time Magazine and who knows how normalised. But I worked out at 89% conservative based on questions, some of which I found perfectly transparent but answered them as I would in any case have done, and some for which I was surprised about the way the system gauged my left-right orientation. It’s not serious, just for fun and no one’s going to know except for yourself.
Debating intelligent design
If the intelligent design issue interests you, there’s a debate at The American Spectator between Stephen Meyer and John Derbyshire that you might have a look at. Meyer is at the centre of this issue on the ID side. Derbyshire is a science man who thinks that whatever a scientific community concludes is the best possible answer you can have at any moment in time.
First there’s Steve Meyer. This is typical of the approach he takes:
In Darwin’s Doubt, I show that the number of possible DNA and amino acid sequences that need to be searched by the evolutionary process dwarfs the time available for such a search—even taking into account evolutionary deep time. Molecular biologists have long understood that the size of the ‘sequence space’ of possible nucleotide bases and amino acids (the number of possible combinations) is extremely large. Moreover, recent experiments in molecular biology and protein science have established that functional genes and proteins are extremely rare within these huge combinatorial spaces of possible arrangements. There are vastly more ways of arranging nucleotide bases that result in non-functional sequences of DNA, and vastly more ways of arranging amino acids that result in non-functional amino-acid chains, than there are corresponding functionalgenes or proteins. One recent experimentally derived estimate places that ratio—the size of the haystack in relation to the needle—at 1077non-functional sequences for every functional gene or protein. (There are only something like 1065 atoms in our galaxy.)
And this is from Derbyshire who is not a frontline biologist but then none of them will enter into such debates. And while he is on the nay side of this debate, after quite a bit of skirting around the issue, if you ask me, he seems to concede the main point. I would say that he has gone a long way from what he might originally have hoped to conclude:
The problem of Mind has vexed philosophers for at least as long as the Demarcation Problem. Is Mind a part of nature, or outside nature? Since the only minds we know of are intimately attached to brains—organs with a fairly well-understood phylogeny and ontogeny—it seems that a naturalistic explanation of Mind ought to be forthcoming, but no-one has come up with one that has received general acceptance.
So the question is open, and for all we know it may be that Mind is outside nature. In that case, the kinds of interactions between Mind and nature that ID talks about can’t be ruled out.
“Mind is outside nature” practically concedes the entire ground. Thomas Nagel, atheist and man of the philosophical left if ever there’s been one, in his Mind and Cosmos has almost on his own made the notion of a separate creation of our independent minds a respectable point of view which Derbyshire mirrors in his own presentation.
Acceptable behaviour in sections of the press and everywhere else as well
Possibly the most ho hum news story of the past year has been the change in the drug laws of the state of Colorado to legalise the use of marijuana which can now be bought legally. A more sinister sign of America going to seed would be hard to find. Lives are routinely ruined and at a young age by the use of drugs but these mind altering drugs are utterly acceptable. Smoking tobacco will also ruin your life by cutting it short at its end. The psychotropic drugs will tune you out at a young age and can make a normal life impossible. Many young lives are ruined by these various drugs which are not to be messed with.
I have followed the Nigella Lawson story particularly closely because it has almost overlapped the Rob Ford story in Toronto. Ford smoked crack cocaine but is an exemplary mayor of Toronto, or at least he is from a more conservative perspective. Nigella is an icon of the modern age, famous for being beautiful and a celebrity chef. But she also took cocaine herself. But let us see from the way this is reported whether you can pick up even the tiniest hint of a campaign to have her disgraced and out of the public eye. The quotes are from her estranged husband, Charles Saatchi:
‘The truth is that she was taking illegal drugs secretly throughout the last few years of our marriage, often with her own child when she was far too young to even smoke or drink.’
He claimed that this ‘took place at an alarmingly frequent rate’ and continued. ‘That this practice seems to be considered acceptable behaviour in sections of the press is deeply disturbing, as is the notion that you can teach your children that drugs are a justifiable way to make “an unbearable situation bearable”,’ he said.
So just how much has all this damaged Nigella?
Ms Lawson on is on holiday in Spain after the UK debut of her latest television show, The Taste, and press attention over claims at a recent fraud trial had died down.
The ratings, I forecast, will be higher than ever.
Cats are wild animals
And what’s more, they serve almost no human purpose, which is partially why I like them. From a review of Cat Sense: How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet, a book on cats by John Bradshaw.
Bradshaw, a biologist at the University of Bristol in England, has studied animal behavior and cats in particular for the last 30 years. The starting point of his analysis is that cats are still essentially wild animals. They wandered into our encampments when we first started to store harvested grains, which attracted mice.
Unlike dogs, which have been greatly changed by domestication from their wolf ancestor, cats have almost never been bred for a purpose. They caught mice well enough, and their kittens made attractive companions. So cats have stayed much the same, with any evolutionary trend toward domestication constrained by frequent interbreeding with wild cats.
To this day the population of domestic cats is maintained in a semiferal state by the practice of neutering. About the only males available for domestic female cats to breed with are the wildest and least people-friendly tomcats who have escaped into the feral cat population. Some 85 percent of all cat matings, Dr. Bradshaw writes, are arranged by cats themselves, meaning with feral cats.
The result is that when cats interact with people, they have to rely almost entirely on their natural social behaviors, which are not highly developed. . . .
Also in the cat behavioral repertory are grooming and rubbing against known cats. When cats rub up against you or invite their head to be stroked, they are treating you as a nonhostile cat. An upright tail is a greeting sign between cats, and ‘is probably the clearest way cats show their affection for us,’ Dr. Bradshaw writes.
Biting the hands that feed her and attacking my toes – as my own feral-born pussy cat routinely does – does not seem to show an entirely well developed sense of self-preservation, at least not the preservation of the cushy life she is currently privileged to lead. Still, she’s in no danger of being asked to fend for herself.
We are perhaps distracted by the louder claims of material advantage
Malcolm Gladwell from his article How How I Rediscovreed Faith:
I was raised in a Christian home in Southwestern Ontario. My parents took time each morning to read the Bible and pray. Both my brothers are devout. My sister-in-law is a Mennonite pastor. I have had a different experience from the rest of my family. I was the only one to move away from Canada. And I have been the only one to move away from the Church.
I attended Washington Community Fellowship when I lived in Washington D.C. But once I moved to New York, I stopped attending any kind of religious fellowship. I have often wondered why it happened that way: Why had I wandered off the path taken by the rest of my family?
What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit. I have always been someone attracted to the quantifiable and the physical. I hate to admit it. But I don’t think I would have been able to do what the Huguenots did in Le Chambon. I would have counted up the number of soldiers and guns on each side and concluded it was too dangerous. I have always believed in God. I have grasped the logic of Christian faith. What I have had a hard time seeing is God’s power.
I put that sentence in the past tense because something happened to me when I sat in Wilma Derksen’s garden. It is one thing to read in a history book about people empowered by their faith. But it is quite another to meet an otherwise very ordinary person, in the backyard of a very ordinary house, who has managed to do something utterly extraordinary.
Their daughter was murdered. And the first thing the Derksens did was to stand up at the press conference and talk about the path to forgiveness. ‘We would like to know who the person or persons are so we could share, hopefully, a love that seems to be missing in these people’s lives.’
Maybe we have difficulty seeing the weapons of the spirit because we don’t know where to look, or because we are distracted by the louder claims of material advantage. But I’ve seen them now, and I will never be the same.
Law of Markets 