A light conscience plays well on TV

Can you imagine anyone from the Bush administration doing anything like this?

Madeline Albright on Gilmore Girls:



Bill Clinton's Last Days in Office:



I can't find the clip of the real Janet Reno's appearance, where she busted through a wall and yelled "It's Reno time!", but in this clip Will Ferrell's Janet Reno beats the hell out of the real Giuliani. In 2002, Janet Reno actually had several dance parties modeled after the SNL sketch.

Janet Reno's Dance Party:

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Things I miss about the 90's: Trip Hop

The whole genre seems to be about going to Europe and seducing and/or assassinating people, back when that kind of thing was so absurd that it was romanticized by icy soprano-vixens and not, like, our foreign policy. Anyway:

Hooverphonic - This Strange Effect


Hooverphonic - 2wicky

Massive Attack - Angel


Tricky - Christiansands


Mono - Life in Mono


Esthero - Heaven Sent

All I want for x-mas...

...is for this asteroid to hit Mars. There's a 1 in 75 chance it'll happen, so I'm hoping for a secular holiday miracle. We'll know for sure in a week or so, but the simulations based on current data are pretty awesome:

Post-Concorde

The Concorde may be extinct, but NASA and Virgin Airlines are working together to develop a passenger space-plane. It looks like an evil flying squirrel:

Not that I'm complaining. The X-43 (until it gets a better name) will fly from New York to London in an hour. In November, a test craft hit Mach 9.6 (about 7,000 mph):



Some background on the concept:


Yo, we live in the future.

My generation did this:

"Avenging Narwhal" product description:
"The narwhal is an arctic-dwelling whale that's been called "the unicorn of the sea" due to its long pointed tusk. While there's much debate about the true purpose of this appendage, the truth is finally revealed! The narwhal uses its mighty tusk to skewer the cute smaller animals of the world… specifically baby seals, baby penguins, and koalas."

It's the koala that makes it art.

Did everyone else know Ben Stein is nuts?

It's too bad, I always found his disinterested sarcasm very funny. Ben Stein has made a movie called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" in which he seeks to show that Intelligent Design proponents have been widely discriminated against in the scientific community, and that it's actually the theory of natural selection that is dogmatic and resistant to criticism. By all means, check out the trailer here.

According to the movie's website, "scientists are being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired for the crime of merely believing that there might be evidence of design in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance."

Ugh, where to start. Let's zoom in on this phrase: "believing that there might be evidence". Do they actually have this evidence? Nope. They BELIEVE this evidence MIGHT exist. So these scientists are being ridiculed and fired for believing something WITHOUT EVIDENCE? They should be. That's not how science works. The end of this quote is equally telling. The minute someone uses the phrase "accidental, random chance" to describe natural selection, you can be sure they've never actually studied it. Natural selection is the exact opposite of random chance.

Intelligent design people are the same as 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Both make claims that run contrary to an enormous body of evidence, and that's actually good. Critical thinking requires accepted truths to be constantly challenged, so bring 'em on. Both groups have had their evidence-free claims considered, studied, and ultimately rejected. See this debate between the "Loose Change" guys and the Popular Mechanics guys, or the Penn and Teller: Bullshit episode looking at 9/11 conspiracy claims here. On intelligent design, see Kirk Cameron's "scientific proof" for the existence of god here, or the Judge's decision in Kitzmiller vs. Dover Area School District (in which the scientific merits of intelligent design were considered) here.

In the 9/11 conspiracy debate, one of the Popular Mechanics guys said "when you ask questions, you also have to look for the answers. When you find answers, you can't just ignore them". That, unfortunately, is exactly what's happened with both groups. For the conspiracy theorists, it's been easy to move on. They just say that the huge amount of experts that disagree with them are part of the conspiracy. For the intelligent design people, it's a little harder. I'm not sure what Ben Stein is going to use to explain why legally and scientifically, ID claims have not withstood scrutiny. Apparently this explanation requires a whole documentary. Expect a full review when "Expelled" is released.

Intelligent design is rooted firmly in scientific illiteracy, that goes without saying, but I think ID is also rooted in the insecurity many people have in their own scientific understanding. Molecular biology is extremely complex. That's not to say the scientific basis for evolution is beyond the comprehension of most people. It's not, but it does require some homework. If one chooses not to do a little reading and thinking to try to understand why the theory is supported, then one is also abdicating the right to criticize its legitimacy.

Good questions, complicated answers.

Apparently, it's democracy week here at Atlantis. Next week we'll get back to science and its awesomeness.

"Why Democracy?" is a film project centered around ten questions posed to politicians, artists, and philosophers. Their responses, which are also included in the ten full-length documentaries, have been exerpted as shorts. My favorites:

Who Rules the World?




What would make you start a Revolution?

Can terrorism destroy Democracy?




Who would you vote for as President of the World?

Are dictators ever good?

Algeria addendum

When I was complaining the other day about the US not spending enough time developing a civil society in Iraq, I forgot to mention Pakistan. Wikipedia describes civil society as the "totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state, or commercial institutions". That's a great definition, but here's a better one:

This is civil society. This is democracy. This is a lawyer in Pakistan protesting the government's tampering with elections. Those are police officers beating him. Musharraf took power in 1999, and Pakistanis have never stopped opposing him through legal challenges and peaceful protest. (More photos here)

Pakistan has an extremely well-educated population, and this is the root of their civil society. Like Algeria in 1991, Pakistan has a politically intrusive military and a collection of militarized Islamist groups. Unlike Algeria, Pakistan's strong civil society has tempered the situation by providing a middle ground and prevented these two forces from starting a civil war.

Civil society makes all the difference, and it kills me to see the US building Iraq's in Algeria's image instead of in Pakistan's.

Myth Watch

The myth of the Golden Age is one of the most pervasive, influential, and destructive fallacies ever constructed. It goes something like this:

"Remember when things were simple? Remember when we had values and the world was safe? We knew who we were and who our enemies were. Now the world is dangerous and complicated. New-fangled arts and sciences have made us question our basic values. We have to fight to return to the way things used to be, back when the world was perfect."

This is the essence of the Garden of Eden and thousands of other nostalgic myths that recall "the simpler time". The problem is, there was never a simpler, safer, better time. There are very few points in history where people could honestly say that things were better in the past.

I use this myth as a teaching tool because there are so many instances of it being used in history to motivate people to do terrible things and believe ridiculous things. It's dangerous because it's so effective. I was shocked then, to hear Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, use this myth while talking to Lou Dobbs on CNN last night. Dobbs asked Perkins why he thought religion was so central to the Republican platform in this election:

PERKINS: I think in part a number of the topics you've had on your show tonight, the problems we're facing as society, there was a very common world view 50 years ago. There was a very set way we viewed the issues around us. There's been a battle raging with the elite secularists that have tried to keep religion out of the public square. So there's a push back. That's why you see a strong confrontation. There are those trying to reinsert it and those trying to push it out.

(full transcript)

That's actually pretty amazing. Is he idealizing the 1950s despite the youth crime, rural poverty, racism, and repression? Or is he idealizing the 1950s because of those things? Who is this "we" in his statement that "There was a very set way we viewed the issues around us"? Perkins takes the myth to the next logical step, which is to blame a group for our collective fall from grace. His choice: "elite secularists". What does that even mean? Well, nothing actually. He's invoking an enemy which is left intentionally ill-defined.

So why is this myth so effective? Because it references our childhood. It transfers the feelings and memories we have of being safe and protected. As children, we didn't have to understand the complexities of the world. On some level, we all wish we could go back to that, but we can't. We can't mix up our personal history and development with world or national history. The world wasn't any simpler in the past, we just remember it that way because we were children.

Background Check: Joseph Smith

"This story raises some very absorbing questions, concerning what happens when a plain racket turns into a serious religion before our eyes."

If you're not familiar with Christopher Hitchens, then everything you need to know about where he's coming from can be taken from the title of his book, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. He's got a bit of an agenda. That said, none of the facts of the origin of Mormonism in this excerpt from his book are in question.

In the absence of a cohesive scientific theory, everyone gets to choose what they believe about the nature of the universe. But don't you want to know what you're signing up for?

Algeria exploding again

Multiple bombings kill dozens in Algiers

On the topic of historical amnesia, anyone remember the last time someone tried to implant democracy in an oil-rich Middle Eastern country that had just crawled out from under a repressive autocratic regime? Technically, it's North Africa, but in terms of political culture, Algeria in 1991 had much more in common with today's Iraq than we remember. Long story short, the Islamist party won the country's first open elections. The military freaked at the thought of the Islamists running the government and decided to take over instead. The Islamist party fought back, sparking a ten year civil war which killed over 160,000 soldiers and civilians.

Al-Qaeda hasn't forgotten Algeria in 1991, and that means we can't either. Good thing we're putting as much time and effort into building civil society and a democratic infrastructure in Iraq as we are building up the military there. Oh wait, we're not.

I don't know which part of this story I love most

I guess the part where something happened on my birthday that required use of the phrases "comet", "rocket", and "classified satellite".

From Space Weather re: weird, comet-like blaze in the sky last night:

"This cloud mimicking Comet 17P/Holmes is fuel dumped from the upper stage of an Atlas rocket that launched a classified satellite into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office on Dec. 10th. The event created a splendid display for about 50 minutes and then faded into the night."

Video

There are over 900 satellites orbiting the Earth right now.

Want to see?

Atlantis the Metaphor

One of my students is doing a project called "Ask me why I'm mad". When she asked me to participate, I started making a very long list. I'm mad about historical amnesia and scientific illiteracy. I'm mad that we're so dumb at a time when the internet makes it so easy to be smart, well-read, informed. I'm mad about Atlantis:

2,367 years ago, Plato wrote two dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, which told the story of the Island of Atlantis. The gist was that Athens had been attacked 9,000 years previously by the powerful "Atlantics", and that through moderation and virtue, Athens had repelled the onslaught of this more powerful, but morally corrupt enemy. Athens went on about it's business, and Atlantis sank into the sea. This, according to Plato explained why the Atlantic Ocean was so shallow where it meets the Mediterranean.

In Plato's time, or when viewed within the context of the rest of his writing, this story is clearly understood as a parable promoting civic virtue and decrying greed and corruption. Plato didn't mean Atlantis to be real, just like book 7 of The Republic isn't about a magic cave where the secrets of the universe are revealed to prisoners who have been chained up since birth. Both are metaphors that Plato uses to make his point. Classics scholars know this, but somewhere along the way, the rest of us forgot the metaphor.

Today, millions of dollars have been spent searching the Mediterranean with sonar for the ruins of Plato's "fabled utopia". This isn't really about rich idiots though, it's about the millions of people who hear "Atlantis" and think "Mystery". They imagine something like this without ever managing to come across the primary source. When you tell them about Plato and suggest that they read Timaeus and Critias for themselves, they look at you like you've asked them to remove your spleen.

I'm not mad that no one reads Plato anymore. I'm mad that we don't think we know how to read Plato anymore. If we don't, or think we can't, do a bit of homework, it becomes so easy for people to separate the myth from the facts. Bottom Line: Do your homework, or else spend thousands of years searching the bottom of the ocean for a metaphor.

This isn't really about Plato though, it's about the past seven years.