Touring with Virgil

2008-07-12T18:39:00.002-04:00

Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District

I have (finally) read the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District opinion, in which the court found, among other things, that intelligent design is not science. (The opinion was entered on December 20, 2005, and can be found at 400 F. Supp. 2d 707.)

This will be a long post, for which my apologies.

What the School Board Did

The Dover Area School District is located in south-central Pennsylvania, in a rural region that includes the historic city of York. In Oct.-Nov. 2004, the District's Board adopted a policy under which teachers of ninth-grade biology in the District would be required to read to their students a prepared statement about evolution and ID.

The statement, which is too long to be repeated here, essentially says: State law requires that we teach you "Darwin's Theory of Evolution"; "Darwin's Theory" is a theory, not a fact; there are "gaps" in the theory "for which there is no evidence"; ID is "an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view"; if you want to learn more about ID, we have made the "reference book" Of Pandas and People available to you; you are encouraged to keep an open mind; "discussion of the Origins of Life" is up to you and your families.

The teachers were told to read this statement to their biology students in Jan. 2005. The teachers refused, and so school administrators visited each class to read the statement. That performance was repeated in June 2005 (with minor changes to the statement that did not affect its basic import).

The Lawsuit

Parents of several students in the ninth grade or lower grades in the District sued the District and the Board on the grounds that the Board's "ID Policy" violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution and the Pennsylvania state constitution. The parents were represented mainly by the ACLU of Pennsylvania. The District and the Board were represented mainly by the Thomas More Law Center, a "public interest law firm" that (I believe) specializes in opposing abortion.

The case was heard in the federal district court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The trial lasted six weeks and was heard only by the judge, without a jury, which is why we an opinion setting forth findings of fact and legal reasoning. (One of my questions about this case is why the defendants didn't demand a jury trial. I purposely didn't do any Googling before writing this, because I don't want to risk confusing what the opinion actually says with whatever I might read on the Net.)

The Court's Reasoning

The opinion, which takes up 60 pages in the printed reporter, is highly entertaining. I can't do justice to it here. I'll just focus on the standard the court applied and the main reasons for its holding.

The court applied two tests in deciding whether the ID Policy violated the Establishment Clause: the endorsement test and the purpose test. (The purpose test is one of three alternative parts of the so-called Lemon test, which is named after a Supreme Court case. One part of the Lemon test was not argued by the plaintiffs, and the third part was essentially identical to the endorsement test.)

1. The Endorsement Test

The endorsement test is intended to determine whether the government's action showed favoritism to one religion over another or to religion generally over non-religion. In applying the test, the court examines what message the government's action conveys to a reasonable, objective observer who is familiar with the action, its origins, the history of the community, and the broader social and historical context.

Because the Board directed its statements to both the ninth-grade students and the general community, the court applied the test both from the viewpoint of a reasonable, objective ninth-grader and a reasonable, objective adult. (In practice, there wasn't much difference between the two analyses.)

The court found that an objective observer familiar with the background would know that ID is a Creationist and religious strategy that developed from earlier forms of Creationism, would view the statement that was read to the ninth-grade biology students as a strong official endorsement of religion, and would also view the Board's public communications announcing the ID Policy as a strong endorsement of a religious view.

The ID Policy therefore violated the Establishment Clause under the endorsement test.

2. Sidebar: Whether ID Is Science

The court made a rather thin effort to explain why it needed to decide this issue. It's not really clear from the opinion that this needed to be addressed in order for the ID Policy to be found unconstitutional. However, I think the court went there because (having listened to six weeks of testimony, including a lot from expert witnesses on both sides) the court really felt it understood the issue and hoped to put it to bed (in its legal aspects) by providing a thorough examination of it.

The court found that, even though ID may be true, it is not science. It found that ID "fails on three different levels": it "violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation"; it employs a "contrived dualism" that maintains that any flaws in evolutionary theory equal support of ID; and the flaws it claims to have found in evolutionary theory "have been refuted by the scientific community."

3. The Purpose Test

The purpose test is intended to determine whether the government's primary purpose in the challenged action was to advance a religion or religion generally. In applying this test, the court looks at almost any admissible evidence that sheds light on what the government's purpose was.

This, for me, was the most interesting part of the opinion. It sheds light on small-town politics and man-in-the-street American religiosity. The court spends 15 pages going through the events leading up to the adoption and carrying out of the ID Policy.

Basically, the chair of the Board, Bonsell, began agitating among the other eight Board members for a return to religion in the District's schools as soon as he joined the Board, in late 2001. His main ally in this was the chair of the Board's Curriculum Committee, Buckingham. Four of the Board members allowed themselves to be overawed by Bonsell and Buckingham. The three remaining members opposed the ID Policy.

Bonsell was very concerned that the high-school biology teachers were teaching things inconsistent with young-Earth Creationism. He therefore began pressuring the teachers not to talk about the origins of humans. Ultimately, he and Buckingham refused to authorize the purchase of standard biology textbooks (which included a section on evolution) in order to pry concessions from the teachers to watch a Creationist documentary and to promise to mention Creationism in their classes. Ultimately, Bonsell and Buckingham got six members of the Board to approve the ID Policy.

It was clear from the testimony that Bonsell and Buckingham pushed the ID Policy for religious reasons and that the other Board members who voted for it went along without bothering to understand the issues involved. The Board did not seek any advice from authorities on science education and disregarded the opposition offered by the science teachers in the District. (I was actually quite impressed by the science teachers' dedication to job to teach real science.)

The court was particularly exercised about the fact that both Bonsell and Buckingham were caught lying under oath. (Among the things they lied about was that copies of the Pandas book, a pro-ID work, was bought for the District with money raised by an appeal of Buckingham to the congregation where he attended church.) The judge didn't mince words in calling them liars.

The Remedy

The court entered an order permanently enjoining the District from implementing the ID Policy and from requiring teachers to "disparage the scientific theory of evolution" and to refer to ID. The court also issued a declaratory judgment that the plaintiffs' federal and state constitutional rights had been violated. Finally, it ordered the defendants to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees (which I'm sure were hefty).

All in all, a fascinating decision, well worth reading.

2008-07-07T16:34:00.001-04:00

Inspired by Steven Goldman

Science statements and religion statements are both about "social facts," if you will. In science, the social facts are scientific objects. When we make science statements, we're not talking about experiences (e.g., "my drink tipped over") but about scientific objects (e.g., "my drink did not stay in the position I put it in because of gravity"). "Gravity" is a scientific object -- no one experiences gravity per se. Our experiences are explained in terms of gravity (we being the educated modern people we are), but gravity itself remains a scientific object, i.e., something created and shaped and revised and (some day perhaps) discarded by scientists and the society that follows scientists on matters within their bailiwick.

Religion statements can be seen the same way. They are statements not about experiences but about religious objects. We experience people being born and developing personalities and thinking into the future and the past and then suddenly ceasing to be. We explain that experience (and others) in terms of some religious object (e.g., the soul and the afterlife). No one experiences the soul per se, just as no one experiences gravity per se. But the religious objects about which people think and speak are no less real (and no more real) than the scientific objects about which people think and speak.

Is there any difference between scientific objects and other social facts (including religious objects)? There is, in that the community of scientists have broadly agreed upon certain criteria for making something a scientific object (and for un-making others, such as flogiston). Religious objects don't meet those criteria. A pure materialist might therefore say that religious objects have no more significance than, say, literary characters. But I don't think pure materialism is warranted.

2008-07-06T13:16:00.000-04:00

Why Intelligent Design Is Not a Scientific Hypothesis

The following is my summary of a lecture by Steven Goldman, a professor at Lehigh University who specializes in the philosophy of science. (Available from the Teaching Company as part of the lecture series "Science Wars.") I thought his lecture was so well done that it was worth posting his points here.

1. Who determines whether any hypothesis is "scientific"?

The determination is rightfully made by the community of people who do science, i.e., scientists.

2. What criteria do scientists use in determining whether a proposed hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis?

Scientists expect a hypothesis to have (i) explanatory power, (ii) logical consistency within a given set of assumptions, (iii) correlation with present experience, and (iv) correlation between the consequences of the hypothesis and predicted future experiences.

3. How does the intelligent-design (ID) hypothesis fare under the foregoing tests?

- a. It lacks explanatory power because it goes outside nature for its explanation, invoking a supernatural causal agent. One of the foundational rules of science as a disciplined approach to the study of nature is that nature must be treated as a closed system. (Even medieval Catholic philosophers accepted this proposition.)

- b. It does not make any testable predictions that would not also be made by someone who did not accept the intelligent-design hypothesis. Thus, it does not make a difference operationally -- it is not fertile in terms of research programs.

4. What support is offered for the proposition that ID is a scientific hypothesis?

- a. That "Darwinian" evolution cannot explain certain things.

- Comeback: This argument is based on a logical fallacy, the argument from ignorance. The fact that theory X cannot explain something tells us nothing about theory Y; it only tells us about theory X.

- b. That "Darwinian" evolution specifically cannot explain the existence of the complex biochemical systems that are characteristic of life forms.

- Comeback 1: Evolutionary theory is more than "Darwinian" evolution. The theory continues to develop, as all "good" scientific theories do.

- Comeback 2: A new science of self-organizing systems has arisen since the 1970s that is a more promising scientific basis for explaining the emergence of complex biological systems than jumping to the ID hypothesis.

- Comeback 3: There is evidence that complex socio-technical systems have in fact emerged from the bottom up. For example, the automobile engine, which is the result of discoveries & inventions in unrelated areas for unrelated purposes.

5. Attempts to discredit evolution as a scientific theory reflect a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific theories and of scientific knowledge. Scientific theories evolve over time, and all major scientific theories evolve multidimensionally, becoming integrated into an expanding explanatory web driven by correlated research programs. Evolutionary theory displays precisely this characteristic, with its developing correlation with genetic theory, molecular biology, anthropology, ecology, environmental science, and plate tectonic geology.

2008-05-13T11:53:00.007-04:00

Posters on the IMDb Philosophy & Religion Board

Following is a list of posters on the Philosophy & Religion board at IMDb. The information below was provided on a volunteer basis, so I have no idea whether it's accurate. (This is an updated version of a list I posted in February 2008.)

acureforgravity, 44, male, sales

Airline_Amy, 36, receptionist, pagan

Anakin McFly, 18

the artichoke, 19, female

AtxAxLoss, 20

Azaezel, 21, male, student

BillabongSurfer, 22, male, pre-med student, agnostic

blemish08, 18, male

bluesguitarguy02, 25, male

Cadency, 20, male, retail assistant

Caim, 20, student, practicing the teachings of Buddhism

chris harkus, 16, male, student, atheist or something close

cingulated, 35, male, atheist

creeese, 32, female, atheist

the death of achilles, 19, male, student, theist

Dennis Waterman, 25, male

Dragon-Fury, 29, female, product management, theist

EdwardLongshanks, 44, male, graphic artist, sometime Celtic Catholic

emsby the prawnaquat, 29, female

F Gump, 48, male

fictionalsleep, 27, male

Fire in Babylon, 27, male, production assistant/comedy writer, atheist

GayIthacan2, 54, male, teacher, atheist

GendoIkari 82, programmer

graham-167, 38, male

guyzzerino, 50, male, accountant, currently corporate controller

HairynosedWombat, 59, male

Hamster-on-a-wheel, 25, teaching assistant/doctoral candidate

happycurl, 35, female, parent

Harvardlawguy, pushing 50, male, lawyer, non-theist

hauntedknight, 24, male, writer, pagan

HentaiGuy42, 24, male, bomb squad, agnostic atheist

Infamous-Sulla, 50, male, atheist

Invincible_JEC, 37, male, former teacher (social studies, grades 7-12)

Jalopasiers, 32, male

Janitor Of Lunacy 456, 19

Jeff-The-God-Of-Biscuits, 24, male

jluis1984, 23, male

josh-384, 26, male, musician, agnostic

July Iris, 24, female

Karyes, 56, female, water works

katcrux, 24, female, candy store shopgirl, atheist with pagan tendencies

Leon-Scott-Kennedy, 21, male, student, Orthodox Christian

Lord Gyaldhart, 30, writer

Mary-Jane Watson, 24, female

MeanerWithTheScenery, 26, male, fired

Melkor Bauglir, 19, male, student, agnostic atheism

mjbrandstoettner, male

morkatt, 44, female, administrative/veterinary assistant, Pagan (2nd degree Wiccan priestess)

MrsO again, 34, female

muppetlass87, 20, female, student

MuthaResurrected, 51, attorney

NunchakuMichelangelo, 20, male, slacker, planning to be a student

odds lane, 14, female [it appears that this poster is in fact male and in his mid-20s, though that has not been confirmed]

ootsonati, 30, male

prawnchopsuey, 47, female

PrincePickwick, 31, male, real estate

Pwny, 30, male, programmer, atheist

Quasarsphere, 33, male, busker, atheist

raceal2, 16, male, student & actor, non-denominational theist

the_robin, 31, male, Christian

Run Mr. Postman, 21, male

SarahLTS, 29

seisiader, 43, male

Semi-Bluff, 53, male, poker player (may soon change), atheist

skyhawk0, 39, male, atheist

Some Dude, 22, male

Sorte Orm, 24, male

Spaz91, 16, male

Sunswipe, 34, male

the65dollarman, 25, male, student/researcher, Scandinavian pagan (Asatru)

To Whom It May Concern, 25, male, atheist

trainrider, male, 61

vampyreaayin, 21, female

WhataRecch, 20, male

whatismyname, 48

words on your screen, 30, male

X-Ice, 53, female, retired/disabled/welfare cheater

Yuck Fou, 18, male

zomnificent, 22, male

2008-03-17T12:37:00.002-04:00

Science and ID

I'm currently listening to a series of lectures on the historical interactions between Western science and Christianity. The lecturer is Lawrence Principe, who's a professor in chemistry and history of science at Johns Hopkins.

Among the points he makes in the lectures are:

1. The "warfare" model of science-religion interactions is a product of the late 19th century and is historically inaccurate.

2. Intelligent Design does not add anything useful to science, even if one is a believer, and purely naturalistic science has not historically come packaged with atheism.

His take on ID was particularly interesting. He situates ID in the tradition of natural theology stretching back centuries and in attempts by "natural philosophers" (i.e., scientists) in the 17th century to come up with ways to distinguish between miracles and the normal workings of nature.

Principe points out that one of the claims of IDers is that ID has explanatory force regarding scientific questions. The problem is that "God did X" doesn't provide an explanation, at least not in the scientific or analytical sense. It's equivalent to saying that something was a miracle. If something was a miracle -- the direct work of a god -- then it's inherently beyond our analytical ability. It can't be broken down any further.

Even if we accept that, for example, the Christian god created the universe, that idea neither advances our scientific understanding nor hinders our search for explanations of natural phenomena.

EDIT: Some of the Q&A regarding the above post, from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb:

Theist: "Then why do evolutionist professors see the 'ID' movement as such a threat?"

Response: "I don't think science professors see ID as a threat. Certainly not as a threat to science. If anything, they see it as an annoyance. It's an annoyance because IDers fill (some of) their students' heads with the mistaken ideas that (1) ID deserves to be called 'science,' and (2) it's not taught in science class because of a conspiracy among 'secular humanist' scientists. They react to ID claims with the same exasperation that your doctor would display if you told him/her that, instead of taking the medicine s/he prescribed for your high cholesterol, you're going to have a shaman wave a rattle over your loins."

2008-03-16T09:18:00.003-04:00

The Bible

The Bible comes in for a lot of abuse from the average atheist. Too often, s/he seems to simply dismiss it as a "book of fairy tales."

I wouldn't deny that the Bible does contain some stories that could fairly be characterized as fairy tales. But it also contains much, much more than that.

The Bible is of course an anthology of ancient works written at widely different times by different people. The Old Testament (mostly written between about 900 and 500 BCE) includes works whose literary value matches almost anything produced during the same period by other cultures. As for the New Testament, from a literary standpoint it's widely agreed to be greatly inferior in quality to the OT. It is, however, fascinating from a historical perspective, since it includes hints of everyday life in the ancient Near East that can't be found in any other primary sources we have.

"Official" Bible translations typically homogenize everything and thus give a poor sense of the Bible's literary merits. To get a sense of the literary qualities of the OT, I recommend A Poet's Bible, which consists of terrific translations by David Rosenberg. (It's inexplicably out of print, but lots of used editions are available.) I also recommend The Book of J, which contains Rosenberg's translation of the portions of the Pentateuch believed to have been written by a single author referred to as "J" (short for the "Jahwist" or "Yahwist"). If you read the reviews on Amazon, you'll find a lot of quibbles with Rosenberg's work, mainly because, in an effort to bring the ancient texts to life, he takes liberties with the literal meanings. But he has tried to do something really unique and significant in rescuing the Bible from ritualism.

2008-03-06T12:17:00.002-05:00

Rational Arguments for God and Apologetics

I recently finished reading Julian Baggini's Atheism: A Very Short Introduction (from Oxford's "Very Short Introduction" series). Toward the end of the book, he gets into arguments for & against religion. I think he makes a good point about arguments for the existence of a god:

Pick up any introduction to the philosophy of religion and you'll see a number of traditional arguments for the existence of God. ... [T]o my mind it is not worth spending too much time on them for the simple reason that these arguments don't provide the reasons why people become religious. This isn't just my view, but the honest opinion of many religious people who give much thought to these arguments. For instance, Peter Vardy, a Christian philosopher and author of several leading textbooks in the philosophy of religion which consider these arguments, calls them 'a waste of time'. Russell Stannard, the leading physicist who wrote a book called The God Experiment on evidence for God's existence, says, 'I don't have to believe in God, I know that God exists -- that is how I feel'. In other words, evidence and arguments are neither here nor there -- it is personal conviction that really counts.

Baggini then explains that these arguments were never intended to prove that a god exists, but instead were apologetics:

The function of such arguments is not to show that God exists, but to show that belief in God does not require any irrationality. It is about reconciling belief and reason, not showing belief to be justified through reason.

I agree with this analysis. As proofs, the arguments for a god are quite weak. They make a lot more sense as efforts to show that belief in a god can be consistent with a rational approach to life.

(cross-posted from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-03-03T12:01:00.002-05:00

The Santa Claus / Tooth Fairy Argument

In his book Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, Julian Baggini discusses the objection to atheism that it is "too committed to the value of rational explanation." This objection maintains, he says, that atheists are wrong when they say we should disbelieve in "anything we have no rational reason to think exists." According to Baggini, the problem with this objection is that

it open[s] the door to any number of irrational absurdities. For example, if you want to seriously argue that we should believe in things we have no rational reason to think exist, why not believe in the tooth-fairy? (Non-atheists tend to get irritated when atheists invoke entities such as the tooth-fairy and Santa Claus to illustrate the ridiculousness of permitting belief in what is not rational, but such irritation does not comprise a serious counter-argument.)

I understand what Baggini is saying here and think his reasoning is good. But by using the tooth-fairy and Santa Claus as examples, I think he makes his argument seem weaker than it really is.

Believing in a god doesn't necessarily open the door to believing in any absurdity. Some things we have no reason to think exist are much more absurd than others. We have a very good basis for not believing in the tooth-fairy or Santa Claus, since we know that parents are the ones who put money under kids' pillows and presents under Christmas trees. There isn't "room" for such beings in the same way there could be room for certain types of gods.

Baggini could have made his point more persuasively by using "absurdities" that are not as easily disproven as the tooth-fairy and Santa Claus. Alien abductions, for example, or the gods of dead religions.

(cross-posted with minor edits from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb)

2008-03-02T15:03:00.002-05:00

Epitomes of Christian Theology

As a former Roman Catholic, I find these amusing:

"God had to kill Himself, to appease Himself, so that He wouldn't have to roast us, his beloved creations, alive for all eternity. Except that He didn't really die."

"God sacrificed himself to himself to appease himself."

"God sacrificed Himself to Himself to appease Himself so that He could change a rule that He made which said that His creations should be punished for being how He created them, and that
He knew He would one day have to change."

(from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-02-24T11:56:00.002-05:00

Q&A re Agnosticism

I have identified myself as a strong agnostic. My use of this label is probably not entirely correct (for a good discussion, see here), but I haven't found an acceptable alternative. By "strong agnostic," I mean I hold as true the proposition that, while some people may know that a god or gods exist, it is impossible for anyone to know the nature of such a god or gods.

This self-identification led to the following Q&A on the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb:

Theist: "Just a quick question about your 'strong agnostic' stance. What is it that makes you believe that 'the nature of a god or gods is unknowable to' YOU. Since you are willing to accept as 'evidence' personal experience what kind of personal experience or knowledge would it take you to move from 'strong' agnostic to let's say a 'willing' agnostic?"

Skeptic: "I've reached this conclusion for several reasons: First, when I was a theist (I was raised Roman Catholic and I've also tried Unitarianism, Quakerism, and Episcopalianism), I didn't have the kind of personal experience or revelation that I am able to take as evidence of a deity. There was no private experience I had then (AFAICR) that I have not also had as a non-theist. Therefore (since I'm nearly 50 years old), I don't anticipate having such an experience in the future. (It's possible, but my past tells me it's unlikely.) Second, even if I do have a private experience sufficient to cause me to believe that a deity exists, I find it almost impossible that the experience would tell me anything reliable about the deity other than that he exists. (I use 'he' for convenience here.) This is because (like any sane person) I would need to check my private experience against other data, including the spiritual experiences reported by others. Since those reports point in varying directions that are mutually exclusive in their details, I would have to discount the details of my own experience. I would thus be left with the one general inference that a deity exists."

2008-02-22T09:26:00.002-05:00

Other Writings of Alvin Plantinga

Theist: "Here's the link to another of his articles, 'Theism, Atheism, and Rationality.' Plantinga believes that 'blind faith' is irrational and that all faith should be based on some evidence. The article above should probably be required reading for posters on the IMDb Philosophy & Religion discussion board. In fact the final argument suggests that the idea that both theists and atheists feel that the other's arguments are dysfunctional is in itself a proof: 'As I have been representing that matter, theist and atheist alike speak of a sort of dysfunction, of cognitive faculties or cognitive equipment not working properly, of their not working as they ought to. But how are we to understand that? What is it for something to work properly? Isn't there something deeply problematic about the idea of proper functioning?' Interesting stuff."

Skeptic: "Thanks for posting this. Most of the stuff by Plantinga that I had found on the web was written at too technical a level for me. I look forward to reading the article you linked. I find this thought especially challenging: 'Plantinga believes that 'blind faith' is irrational and that all faith should be based on some evidence.' I started a thread a few days ago pushing the proposition that the only good evidence for a god is private evidence (private revelation), which by its nature is not subject to debate. It leaves believers and atheists nothing to talk about. One group feels it, and the other doesn't."

Later . . .

Skeptic: "I just read that article. It's a tough one to get a handle on. As I understand it, his argument is the following: 1. That some people have theistic beliefs is a given. A theist can't simply un-believe in a god or gods, just as someone can't suddenly un-believe that Mars is smaller than Venus. 2. Atheists tend to think that theists believe what they believe because they are somehow intellectually flawed. 3. Atheists who think the foregoing (item 2) should be able to present an explanation of how theists are intellectually flawed, i.e., what constitutes a healthy intellect and in what ways are theists' intellects not healthy. 4. Atheists are unable to provide such an explanation beyond mere assertions. What strikes me as odd about the article is that Plantinga doesn't really confront the prevailing answer to the questions raised in item 3. Most atheists (I think) would say that a healthy intellect is one that evaluates data, and draws inferences from data, by a rational process (let's call it the detective explanation). Plantinga acknowledges such an explanation early in the article but then drops it. By the time he gets to item 4 in his argument, he seems to have forgotten it. If he had faced the detective explanation head on, I suppose he could have argued (a) that it's still just an assertion, since we have no way of proving that the detective explanation is right; or (b) even if we assume that the detective explanation is right, theists are not without supporting data (including the data of their private promptings)."

Theist: "Plantinga believes as well that 'a healthy intellect is one that evaluates data, and draws inferences from data, by a rational process (let's call it the detective explanation)'. As your post summarizing his 'Theistic Arguments' proves, Plantinga is willing to provide numerous rational arguments for his faith. It appears that he has a pretty healthy intellect and is willing to argue his position rationally. He has equal opinions of those who have blind faith and those who argue that all those who have faith are blind, both sides need to think a bit more. It is equally wrong to blindly dismiss the arguments of atheists as it is to blindly dismiss the arguments of people of faith."

Skeptic: "That makes sense. (It's what I was trying to get at with the (b) part of my last sentence.) I have another article by Plantinga that I've started but haven't yet had time to finish. It's entitled 'Advice to Christian Philosophers' and is available in PDF here. Interestingly, in section III of the article ('Theism and Theory of Knowledge'), he asks, Why can't a theist's belief in God be itself part of the evidence on which the theist can base a rational conclusion that there is a god? My answer to that question is, Yes, it can be part of the evidence. In fact, I think it's probably the strongest evidence. The theist has an inner light or immediate conviction that I don't have. He has an experience that I do not, and that experience is evidence of something."

Theist: "Yes, I have that article, 'Advice to Christian Philosophers' saved on my other computer. Pretty good stuff. I appreciate the preceding comment of yours and its honesty. If in fact the experience of 'evil' can be considered an argument against God, and I think it actually can be an argument for His existence as well, then the experience of God's presence in one's life should be considered as evidence. Sadly it seems that many atheists don't have that viewpoint and insist that there lack of experience is somehow more real."

(from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-02-20T13:21:00.002-05:00

Plantinga's "Two Dozen (or So) Theistic Arguments"

Through the links on the Wikipedia page about philosopher Alvin Plantinga, I found a piece by him entitled "Two Dozen (or So) Theistics Arguments." Available here in PDF. The article is labeled "Lecture Notes by Alvin Plantinga" and is accordingly in a rough form, with a lot of points merely suggested rather than explained. Much of it (especially the first half) is also pretty dense.

I thought it would be interesting to summarize (and inevitably oversimplify) Plantinga's list here:

1. Ontological (or Metaphysical) Arguments

A. Argument from Intentionality (or Aboutness) -- if propositions have intentionality, then some being before us must have thought them.

B. Argument from Collections -- sets exist independently of human minds and are so numerous that they require an infinite mind.

C. Argument from Natural Numbers -- similar to B but using numbers.

D. Argument from Counterfactuals -- counterfactual reasoning is based on an ability to sort meaningful from irrelevant similarities and differences; that ability is ineffable.

E. Argument from Physical Constants -- why is the universe isotropic, in the precise way that makes life possible?

F. The Naive Teleological Argument -- why does the natural world appear to be orderly?

G. Tony Kenny's Style of Teleological Argument (Plantinga simply lists this one without any comment)

H. The Ontological Argument (ditto)

I. Another Argument Thrown in for Good Measure -- contingent beings (such as humans) could not exist without some necessary being.

2. Epistemological Arguments

J. Argument from Positive Epistemic Status -- why do so many natural things work properly?

K. Argument from the Confluence of Proper Function and Reliability -- why do our beliefs correspond reliably with reality?

L. Argument from Simplicity -- theism is the simplest explanation.

M. Argument from Induction -- what's the origin of our belief that things in the future will happen as they typically have in the past?

N. The Putnamian Argument (Argument from the Rejection of Global Skepticism) -- A Christian-type god would not deceive us "in a disgustingly wholesale manner"; therefore, the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis can't be true; therefore, since we "know" that the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis is not true, there is a god.

O. Argument from Reference -- Similar to N, but turning on the proposition that we would not be able to think the thoughts we have if there were not an outer reality that they correspond to.

P. The Kripke-Wittgenstein Argument from Plus and Quus (Plantinga simply lists this one without any comment)

Q. General Argument from Intuition -- where do our true intuitions come from?

3. Moral Arguments

R. Moral Arguments -- where do objective moral facts come from?

R*. Argument from Evil -- certain kinds of human evil is so utterly appalling that it requires divine judgment.

4. Other Arguments

S. Argument from Colors and Flavors -- why is there a correlation between physical and psychical properties?

T. Argument from Love -- where does love come from?

U. Mozart Argument -- where does appreciation of beauty come from?

V. Argument from Play and Enjoyment -- why is our pleasure connected with certain things?

W. Arguments from Providence and from Miracles (Plantinga simply lists this one without any comment)

X. C.S. Lewis's Argument from Nostalgia -- why do certain things make us think of a creator?

Y. Argument from the Meaning of Life (Plantinga doesn't really explain this one)

Z. Argument from A to Y -- why are there so many questions that are readily answered by positing a god?

(from the Philisophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-02-19T18:39:00.006-05:00

Are Rational Arguments for the Existence of a God or Gods Doomed to Fail?

I'm inclined to think so. Lots of rational arguments for the existence of a god have been put forward over the millennia. But I have yet to hear a good one. They are all easily brushed aside. Moreover, such arguments seem to become increasingly weak as we devise better and better non-god theories to account for ourselves and the things around us.

Consequently, in response to the question, "Why should I believe what you're telling me, Mr./Ms. Theist?" I don't think any answer is worth making. There is no answer that will convince any educated person who is not already disposed to agree.

The only things a theist can say (IMO) that are not pointless would be: "This is what I believe. I have a strong, private conviction that it is right."

Statements of religious belief would thus be similar to "I like broccoli" or "I find Tyra Banks more attractive than Heidi Klum." They would be statements of private opinion, beyond rational support (or contravention).

(from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

Some Responses:

calystia: "I agree, I have never seen a rational argument for god, and I doubt any theist would be able to come up with one that would sway my opinion in the slightest."

Leon-Scott-Kennedy: "I don't know that they are 'easily brushed aside' (I doubt philosophers would still be seriously debating many forms of various arguments if they were that easy to be rid of), but yes, ultimately, I think they are 'doomed to fail.' You can't rationalize the irrational, and even if you succeed in doing so, you've probably only touched at the surface of what is true."

Leon-Scott-Kennedy (responding to my question whether any philosophers are currently debating arguments for a god): "Well, I know relatively recently, the cosmological argument has resurfaced thanks to William Lane Craig, and the ontological argument thanks to Alvin Plantinga. Hans Kung published a hefty tome in the 80s compiling all the 'proofs' for the existence of God. For a class, I recently picked up a much smaller text by Richard Swinburne discussing some 'proofs.' It seems unlikely to me that these men would go unanswered; one could probably find a 'companion' volume to each of these works arguing the very opposite point."

Helios 1: "I'm somewhat undecided at the moment, but I know the answer isn't so obviously in the positive as the denizens of this board seem to believe it is (and they are not good at brushing them to the side...very few of them are willing or able to criticize anything other than radically conservative fundamentalist sects of major theistic religions). It's something that intelligent people and philosophers have grappled with since rising from the primordial soup. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in theism (mainly due to the implosion of logical positivism), and a surge of interesting literature has been produced by contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. Those who are really interested would probably do well to start looking there. See, for example, the work of Alvin Plantinga, William Alston, Richard Swinburne, William Lane Craig, John Hick, John Mackie, William Rowe, Mark McCleod, Joshua Hoffman, Gary Rosenkrantz, Brian Leftow, Paul Helm, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Yandell, Robin Collins, John Leslie, Linda Zagzebski, Eleanore Stump, Robert Adams, Keith Ward, Hans Küng, Norman Malcolm, Charles Hartshorne, and many others. Good luck."

lovehopefaith: "To answer simply, YES they are doomed to fail. How do you explain an infinite being with your finite mind and capabilities? How do you explain a spiritual being with merely physical data/proof? You can't."

sverrir90: "I have yet to see a somewhat decent and thorough argument for the existence of a higher [supernatural] being. I never seen an argument for the exisence of a *particular* higher [supernatural] being that has not been insanely retarded."

LionHearted99: "Let's put it this way: If there were any convincing arguments for the existence of God, they would have long ago been manifest. Since no convincing arguments have come forward, we must conclude that there are no rational arguments that prove the existence of God."

2008-02-16T15:46:00.003-05:00

What Characteristics Tend to Make a Religion Lame?

Certain atheists seem to hold that all religions are equally lame. I tend to think, however, that some religions (e.g., Scientology) are lamer than others (e.g., Quakerism).

Here are characteristics that I think will tend to make a religion that possesses them lame (and the more it possesses, the lamer it is):

- requiring its adherents to pay money in order to learn whatever "truths" the religion has to offer (Scientology)

- there's good historical evidence that it was founded by a con-artist (L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith).

- encouraging its adherents to commit suicide (Heaven's Gate, the Peoples Temple of Jim Jones)

- rigid adherence to readily falsifiable claims about reality (YEC, Scientology)

- harassing non-believers, critics, and apostates (Scientology, Roman Catholicism in the past, LDS in the past, Islam, some Protestant sects, many others)

- positing a detailed scheme of supernatural beings (LDS, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism)

- promoting or winking at vulgar superstition (Roman Catholicism, Islam, Santeria, Hinduism, LDS)

- discouraging members from associating with non-members (Jehovah's Witnesses, evangelical Christians, Islam)

That's my shot at an initial list. (NOTE: My initial list has been edited to reflect comments from others.) I'm sure this could be enlarged and refined. Also, needless to say, the examples in parentheses are not meant to be exhaustive.

(from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-02-15T17:45:00.005-05:00

A Dialogue on the Problem of Evil

Theist: "God allows evil, that doesn't mean God created evil. Evil is disobeying God, evil is sin. If God did not allow evil, he would destroy everything that was evil, that includes us. If evil did not exist, we would be creatures with no choice but to do good. The existence of evil means that humans have free will and can choose between right and wrong. A loving God allows His human creations the choice between good and evil. A tyrannical god would not give humanity a choice, he would create a humanity with the inability to choose. 'Robots' if you will."

Skeptic: "I don't think free will works as an explanation for evil if we wish to stay within the confines of Christian theology. It seems to me that the argument must be based on the premise that the Christian god was incapable of creating a universe in which people would have free will but there would be no evil. If this god were incapable of doing that, then he wouldn't be omnipotent. He would be subject to outside constraints, such as the constraint that you can't have free will without evil. But the Christian god is omnipotent. Therefore, he could have created the universe in such a way that we would have free will but there would be no evil. For some reason he chose not to do it that way. He chose to make the universe the way we find it. IMO, the only coherent explanation for the existence of evil, assuming a loving and omnipotent creator god, is that he had reasons for doing things the way he did, those reasons are beyond our comprehension, and we just have to trust that they are loving reasons. "

Theist: "If evil is doing other than what God wants, then the notion of not being able to go against what God wants contradicts the idea of having free will. You are asking for a square circle, an inherent contradiction."

Skeptic: "Fair enough. I can think of two responses (which are unrelated to each other). 1. When we talk about the problem of evil, 'evil' is often defined as more than just 'doing other than what God wants.' Evil would also include earthquakes, floods, cancer and other diseases, animal attacks, accidents. Even if everyone did what their god wants, those things would still bring harm to people. An explanation of the problem of evil should explain why we have those things. 2. Since the Christian god is an omnipotent creator, he should be able to make a square circle and other inherent contradictions. He not only created the things in the universe; he also created all the properties of and rules governing those things. He could have created a universe with completely different properties and completely different rules from what we are subject to."

Theist: "1. Defining evil in terms of human desires also makes it relative, not absolute. What I consider good because it benefits me, you may consider evil because it hurts you. If you do that, then either one of us is favored by God, or God is not involved in what is good or evil. If you want to talk about good and evil and use 'God' in the same sentence, it has to involve what God wants. 2. The basic rule of reality is that contradictions do not exist. If you say they do, you remove logic from the picture and you can no longer come to any legitimate conclusions. The universe could have been very different but it could not be self contradictory."

Skeptic: "1. If you want to stick with that definition of 'evil' (which you're certainly entitled to do), then I would pose a different question to believers in an omnipotent and loving creator god: Why did he create a universe in which substantial harm befalls his creatures regardless of whether they do what he wants or not? 2. This argument would make our reality & logic greater than the omnipotent creator. This creator created our reality. Given omnipotence, he should have been able to create any kind of reality he wanted, including one with different logic or no logic."

Theist: "1. Loving, hating etc. gods are the old style anthropomorphic immanent gods that had control of parts of the universe. God is the transcendent creator. What he wants us to do is to fulfill our part in the universe, to be what we can be. The obvious first step is to survive, the second to advance - whatever that may mean. Thus religions that help survival and facilitate advancement - again whatever that may turn out to mean - are good religions. Others are not good religions. Look at how the world works - that is the mind of God. 2. Any logic that allows specific conclusions must not allow contradiction, else anything can be 'proven', which means that nothing can be proven. If you allow contradictions, you cannot then come to conclusions or ask contradictions to be explained. So there are no longer any problems to resolve."

Skeptic: "1. It seems that you're talking about a non-Christian god (or an unorthodox Christian god). In that event, I really have no issue. My issue is with the effort to use free will to reconcile the Christian idea of a god, who is (a) omnipotent and (b) loving, with (c) the presence of evil (where 'evil' includes naturally occurring harm) in the universe he created. 2. I think your point 2 is consistent with my view that, assuming there is a god along the lines of Christian belief, his motives are beyond our comprehension."

Theist: "1. I am talking about God, who is not owned by any one religion. That would be a throwback to the old concept of tribal/national gods. 2. God's overall motives are not entirely clear, e.g., why are there black holes? But we seem to have a built-in approximate direction. To me, religion as a preserver of community (in its broadest sense) assists in going the right way. A religion that does not do that is wrong."

(Skeptic elected not to comment further.)

(from the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb.)

2008-02-13T18:28:00.007-05:00

Occupations of Posters on IMDb's Philosophy & Religion Board

Some of the posters on the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb have been disclosing what they do for a living. That information is presented here in alphabetical order by screen name.

Azaezel -- amateur screenwriter/director

the death of achilles -- philosophy major in college

Dragon-Fury -- mechanical engineer working with continuous wave microwave for industrial use

GendoIkari 82 -- programmer

guyzzerino -- accountant, currently corporate controller

happycurl -- parent

Harvardlawguy -- lawyer (that's me)

JesusIsNotYourHomeboy -- community service

morkatt -- assistant to the veterinarians and nutritionist at a large poultry company

muppetlass87 -- student

NunchakuMichelangelo -- slacker, planning to be a student

RedRuth1966 -- research scientist, molecular cell biology

Sitcom Sally -- stay-at-home mom, formerly social worker and then accountant

X-Ice -- retired/disabled/welfare cheater

2008-02-13T10:14:00.001-05:00

Serious Question for Creationists

I'm currently listening to a series of taped lectures on the history of science by a professor at Johns Hopkins. Today he was talking about the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601).

Even though Brahe was familiar with the work of Copernicus (positing that the sun, not the earth, is at the center of the universe), Brahe rejected Copernicus's sun-centered theory for both physical and theological reasons. His theological reasons included his belief that a moving earth and non-moving sun were contrary to the Bible. Specifically, in Joshua 10:12-13, it says that Joshua commanded the sun, " 'Sun, stand thou still at Gibeon, . . . .' And the sun stood still . . . ." If the sun was always still, and the earth moved around the sun rather than vice versa, this passage wouldn't make sense.

That caused me to wonder how creationists feel about this passage and whether it means that the sun revolves around the earth. In other words, if we interpret the Bible literally (six days means six days, etc.), then does that require us to reject the idea that the earth revolves around the sun?

(Just to be clear, I'm not trying to bait people. I just want to understand creationism better.)

(Cross-posted from the IMDb Philosophy & Religion board.)

2008-02-10T21:58:00.003-05:00

Age/Sex Data Provided by Posters on the IMDb Philosophy & Religion Discussion Board

In February 2008, assorted posters on IMDb's Philosophy & Religion discussion board posted their ages and whether they're male or female. For reference purposes, that information is gathered here, in alphabetical order. (NOTE 1: This is what people posted; I have no idea whether anything not posted by me was accurate.) (NOTE 2: Names in brackets are late additions and are not reflected in the "number crunching" below.) (NOTE 3: Some of the late additions are based on inferences from what the poster has disclosed rather than explicit disclosure of his/her age and sex.)

Anakin McFly, 18 (no sex stated)

Applied to Cucumbers, 31, male

the artichoke, 19, female

Azaezel, 20, male

blemish08, 18, male

bluesguitarguy02, 25, male

chris harkus, 16, male

cingulated, 35, male

the death of achilles, 19, male

Dragon-Fury, 29, female

emsby the prawnaquat, 29, female

F Gump, 48, male

fictionalsleep, 27, male

Fire in Babylon, 26, male

graham-167, 38, male

guyzzerino, 50, male

[HairynosedWombat, 59, male]

happycurl, 35, female

Harvardlawguy, pushing 50, male (that's me)

Jalopasiers, 32, male

Janitor Of Lunacy 456, 19 (no sex stated)

Jeff-The-God-Of-Biscuits, 24, male

jluis1984, 23, male

July Iris, 24, female

Mary-Jane Watson, 24, female

[Melkor Bauglir, 18, male]

MrsO again, 33, female

muppetlass87, 20, female

NunchakuMichelangelo, 20, male

odds lane, 14, female [it appears that this poster is in fact male and in his mid-20s, though that has not been confirmed]

ootsonati, 30, male

prawnchopsuey, 47, female

[SarahLTS, 29 (no sex stated)]

seisiader, 43, male

Some Dude, 22, male

Sorte Orm, 24, male

trainrider, male, 61

vampyreaayin, 21, female

[WhataRecch, 20, male]

whatismyname, 48 (no sex stated)

words on your screen, 30, male

[X-Ice, 53, female]

Yuck Fou, 18, male

zomnificent, 22, male

Number crunching: As of 12:24 pm on Feb. 11, 2008, I have 39 responses. Based on those responses, 25 (64%) are male, 11 (28%) are female, and 3 (8%) did not disclose a sex. The mean age is 29 (1,132 over 39). The median age is just under 26.

2008-02-10T18:30:00.003-05:00

Who Are the "Moderate" Posters on the IMDb Philosophy & Religion Board?

I've been putting together a list of the "moderate" posters (IMO) on the Philosophy & Religion discussion board at IMDb. By "moderate" posters, I mean people who tend to take a live-and-let-live approach to P&R issues, are willing to question their assumptions, and are interested in hearing what others have to say.

At present, my list includes:

- The Death of Achilles
- DAdvocate
- Leon Scott Kennedy
- the dork lord
- Harvardlawguy (that's me)
- phe de

This list is not exclusive. Also, I don't mean to suggest that the "immoderate" posters are necessarily lacking in intelligence or humor.

UPDATE: The following are posters who identified themselves as being "moderate" in their approach:

- captainfantazmo
- cpfh
- hitters123
- i see spots
- Jeff-The-God-Of-Biscuits
- July Iris
- petersoni
- Pop Will Eat Ramjet
- TonyHarrison
- X-Ice

The following posters were identified by others as being "moderate":

- MrsO Again, ohmandy, leonardo, Lion Hearted, Mary-Jane Watson, lightandsalt, aspie-1, and RedRuth1966 (by petersoni)
- emsby the prawnaquat (by the dork lord)

2006-09-09T12:08:00.000-04:00

Knowledge of Dante Wins It All

Last night, I was delighted to see, on a Jeopardy re-run, that the Final Jeopardy answer, in the final episode of the 2006 Tournament of Champions, involved Dante.

The Final Jeopardy category was World Literature. The answer* posed to the final three champions was:

"Poet, by that God to you unknown,
lead me this way. Beyond this present ill
and worse to dread, lead me to Peter's gate
and be my guide through the sad halls of Hell."

(That is John Ciardi's translation; I think Jeopardy used a different one, and also elided some of the text.)

The correct response was "What is The Divine Comedy?" Only one champion got it right -- Michael Falk, a research meteorologist from Milwaukee. The other two guessed Pilgrim's Progress and Paradise Lost. Mr. Falk had wagered enough on Final Jeopardy that his knowledge of Dante won the whole tournament, bringing him a prize of $250,000.

The giveaway in the quote, for those who know anything about The Divine Comedy, is the address to a "Poet." The Roman poet Virgil leads Dante through Hell and most of Purgatory, before Beatrice takes over as his guide. The precise location of the quoted lines is Canto I, ll. 130-35, of The Inferno, the first of the three books that make up The Divine Comedy. In Dante's words:

. . . "Poeta, io ti richeggio
per quello Dio che tu non conoscesti,
a cio ch'io fugga questo male e peggio,

che tu mi meni la dov' or dicesti,
si ch'io veggia la porta di san Pietro
e color cui tu fai cotanto mesti."

*As Jeopardy fans know, the "answers" on the show are really questions, and vice versa.

2006-09-06T09:16:00.001-04:00

Ben-Hur: Movie vs. Book

If you haven't read the novel Ben-Hur, you owe it to yourself to do so. It is not only a ripping yarn but also an effective attempt to recreate the world of Jesus as realistically as possible. The book is full of densely detailed, carefully researched descriptions that were intended (I believe) to dispel the reader's hazy Sunday-school vision of the time of Christ and replace it with granite-hard likenesses of the sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and feelings of the first century AD. It is total immersion.

There are many important ways in which the book differs from the 1959 movie (which is excellent nonetheless). Without giving too much away, here are some of the differences that especially struck me:

1. The friendship between Ben-Hur and Messala does not have the bosom-buddy air that it has toward the start of the movie. In fact, Messala's character is quite different in the book. In the movie, he comes across as an ambitious man swept along by events and his unwillingness to rock the boat. In the book, he is much more complex, and both more Roman and more modern -- he's a man who has killed his own soul with cynicism.

2. In the chariot race of the movie, Messala goes after Ben-Hur with wheel-destroying axle spikes. In the book . . . well, let's just say that Ben-Hur is the trickier driver of the two.

3. The book has deep theological discussions that are barely touched upon in the movie, particularly as regards the nature of the Messiah.

4. In the book, Jesus does not appear in the hold of the battleship to release Ben-Hur from his chains. [Oops -- see below on this one.]

5. The movie is missing at least two central characters: Malluch, an employee of Simonides, and Iras, the daughter of Balthasar. In addition, Ben-Hur's relationship with Simonides plays a much greater role in the book than it does in the movie.

6. Ben-Hur's delay in returning to Judea after his adoption by Arrius is given a logical explanation in the book. As I recall, that issue is simply ignored in the movie.

7. The circumstances surrounding the release of Ben-Hur's mother and sister are almost entirely different.

There are many additional differences. I wish someone would put out a quality annotated edition of Ben-Hur, with notes on the intellectual and cultural history built into the book and how it has aged in the 126 years since the book was published.

Thanks to Lew Wallace for his magnificent literary achievement.

EDIT: A wise fellow at the IMDb Philosophy & Religion discussion board helpfully pointed out that, in the move, Jesus does not appear in the hold of the battleship to release Ben-Hur. In the movie, as in the book, Arrius commands that Ben-Hur not be chained. I think my memory was skewed by the fact that in the movie, Arrius's gesture causes Ben-Hur to recall a time when "another man" helped him, and the Jesus theme is played in the background.

2006-09-05T08:39:00.000-04:00

Some Insight into Happiness

I recently heard a radio interview of Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who has written Stumbling on Happiness. Stumbling has been getting favorable attention. I have not read it yet, but I think some of the observations made by Prof. Gilbert during the interview are worth pondering. Based on his research, he believes that:

1. Most people are made happier by multiple moderately happy events than by one extremely happy event.

2. Most of us tend to exaggerate in our imaginations how bad bad events will be and how good good events will be.

3. Most people are surprisingly resilient in the face of bad events. Therefore, if we assume (as is likely to be the case) that we're not very different from other people, then we can have confidence in our ability to handle bad events.

2006-09-01T10:47:00.000-04:00

Quote for Today

As we lay awake long before daybreak, listening to the rippling of the river, and the rustling of the leaves, in suspense whether the wind blew up or down the stream, was favorable or unfavorable to our voyage, we already suspected that there was a change in the weather, from a freshness as of autumn in these sounds. The wind in the woods sounded like an incessant waterfall dashing and roaring amid rocks, and we even felt encouraged by the unusual activity of the elements. He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair. That night was the turning-point in the season. We had gone to bed in summer, and we awoke in autumn; for summer passes into autumn in some unimaginable point of time, like the turning of a leaf.

* * *

We heard the sigh of the first autumnal wind, and even the water had acquired a grayer hue. The sumach, grape, and maple were already changed, and the milkweed had turned to a deep rich yellow. In all woods the leaves were fast ripening for their fall; for their full veins and lively gloss mark the ripe leaf, and not the sered one of the poets; and we knew that the maples, stripped of their leaves among the earliest, would soon stand like a wreath of smoke along the edge of the meadow. Already the cattle were heard to low wildly in the pastures and along the highways, restlessly running to and fro, as if in apprehension of the withering of the grass and of the approach of winter. Our toughts, too, began to rustle.

-- from "Friday," in A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, by Henry David Thoreau (first published in 1849).

2006-08-30T12:31:00.000-04:00

Enron in One Lesson

I recently finished reading The Smartest Guys in the Room, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind (senior writers for Fortune magazine). It tells in great detail -- 420 dense pages -- the story of Enron, the vehicle for what may have been the biggest fraud in history.

Here is my "short" version of the Enron mess. (With apologies for the inordinate length of this post.)

What did Enron's management actually do that was wrong? Mainly two things -- (1) outright lying to investors and (2) playing games with the books so that Enron's disclosures to the public made the company seem like something it wasn't. An example of transgression number 1 was when Jeff Skilling told stock analysts that Enron's broadband operation was up and running, when that wasn't even close to being true. Even a 10-year-old could see that that was wrong.

Transgression number 2 was much more devious. A piece of it was management's incorrect characterization of one-time gains as income from operations. In other words, Enron sold a productive asset (such as a power plant) and then made it appear as if the money from the sale was actually income from Enron's ongoing day-to-day business instead of a one-time thing. Another piece of transgression number 2 was shifting income from the proper time period to a different one, to give the appearance that Enron's day-to-day business made money steadily instead of by fits and starts with major ups and downs.

And a final (and huge) piece of transgression number 2 was using sleight of hand to make debts seem like income, so that Enron seemed to be making billions when it was actually borrowing billions. (This was the main purpose of those infamous off-balance-sheet partnerships.) Many of the top guys at Enron seem to have hoped and believed, against the odds, that the company would come up with a big, new, money-making idea before all the billions in loans came due. They were sadly mistaken.

What ethical lessons can we take away from the Enron debacle? The Enron scam lasted from 1996, when Skilling became Enron's president, until mid-to-late 2oo1, when the company finally imploded. Hundreds of people worked hard to maintain a massive illusion during that time. They were smart people from average backgrounds. How could they have done this?

Let's just look at the guys at the top. When it comes to business scams, I think there are basically two types of scammers: First are the guys who set out to rip others off. For whatever reason, they think that their own enrichment is more important than the harm they do to others. Second are the guys who do something wrong (like taking a little money out of the till) because they've convinced themselves that they will ultimately make things right. The end result, they think, will be a win-win; they're just committing a small wrong to stave off a big disaster. (See James Gould Cozzens's By Love Possessed for a fictional example.) But stealing becomes a habit, and ultimately they're so far in the hole that they drag their business and their creditors down with them.

I think Ken Lay (the chairman and CEO) and Skilling were primarily of the latter type. They believed that Enron had been a great business and would go on being a great business; it just needed a little help now and then in keeping up appearances until they hit the next jackpot. (Indeed, both men did have some good ideas early on that actually added value and made honest money.) But they became addicted to cheating; "now and then" quickly grew into "all the time." And in the process, they became blinded to the fact that they were deceiving people.

Andy Fastow, on the other hand (the chief financial officer, or CFO), was I think of the former type. He was basically an upscale con man. He saw Enron as just another way to separate investors and lenders from their money, by any means necessary. And he saw his off-balance-sheet partnerships as a way of separating Enron from its money.

Scammers like Lay and Skilling and Fastow have always existed and always will. What made Enron different was the scale of what they were able to pull off . . . for a time.

Thus, the main practical lesson from Enron is not new. It is simply that those of us who are investors (which nowadays means almost everyone in the U.S.) need to be vigilant about what we're investing in. The old saying is truer now than ever: don't invest in anything you can't understand. Too many people who should've known better -- especially analysts and credit-rating firms -- were bamboozled by Enron's purposely convoluted disclosures and assumed that the rosy picture painted by management was accurate. As we know now, it was a lie. It was fraud.

The larger life lesson, the moral lesson, is to be especially skeptical of hype when the hype is beneficial to us. There are countless ways in which the human mind can make something that's wrong seem right. (Remember that in Paradise Lost, one of the reasons why Adam agreed to eat the apple was that he felt sorry for Eve.) Just as we need to be on our guard against the fraudsters out in the world, we need to be on our guard against our own, inner sweet talk.

2006-08-28T12:32:00.000-04:00

What Blog Has Taught You the Most?

Sometimes a blog post can teach us more than an entire book. A consistently good blogger can be an especially effective teacher, because blogging enables him or her to repeat the same short lessons in multiple contexts, at a time when each context is important to the reader.

The blog that has taught me the most has to be Marginal Revolution, by economics professors and authors Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. Day after day for three years, they have shown how the principles of economics can help us understand our world and choose intelligently between various possible public policies or courses of action. And they are gentlemen.

2006-08-24T08:57:00.000-04:00

Books Recommended by Bible Scholar Robert Alter

Robert Alter, a respected Bible translator and scholar (see, for example, The Five Books of Moses and The Literary Guide to the Bible), was asked by the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) to recommend five books on the Bible. On Saturday (8/19/06), the Journal published his recommendations, with his comments. It's an interesting list, containing no book that I'm familiar with:

1. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, by Erich Auerbach (Princeton, 1953). Alter explains that only the first chapter of this book is focused on the Bible, but it's important because it "mak[es] us see that the Bible is not somehow apart from literature, sequestered in a special preserve of theology and spirituality, but is rather a manifestation of a high literary art."

2. The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, by Hans W. Frei (Yale, 1974). Alter says this "is a deeply instructive investigation of the history of ideas."

3. The Book of God, by Gabriel Josipovici (Yale, 1988). Alter: "[A]n imaginative overview, sensitive to narrative detail and to stylistic nuance, of both Testaments[.]" I really want to get my hands on this one.

4. Leviticus as Literature, by Mary Douglas (Oxford, 2000). Alter: "[S]he shows that modern condescension toward biblical writing is misguided[.]"

5. The Biography of Ancient Israel, by Ilana Pardes (Univ. of Cal., 2000). Alter: "[S]he shows us an epic tale that has as its subject not an individual hero but the Israelite people itself."

2006-08-11T12:22:00.000-04:00

The Harvard Hymn

The Harvard Hymn is a dignified, quietly majestic Latin hymn written in the nineteenth century for ceremonies at Harvard University. The full lyrics and score are available here in PDF (2 pages), while synthesized performances of the tune are available here, courtesy of the Harvard math department.

The lyrics were written by James Bradstreet Greenough (1833-1901), a classics professor at Harvard and the co-author (with Joseph A. Allen) of a scholarly Latin grammar that remains definitive. (I own a well-thumbed & much-loved copy.) The hymn was composed by John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), a Harvard music professor, organist, and choirmaster, and a talented composer as well.

The hymn is performed each spring during commencement and also each September at the end of the Opening of Term service in Harvard's Memorial Church (Episcopal). Unfortunately, a commercial recording of the hymn does not appear to be available, though thankfully other recordings by the Harvard University Choir are. I personally love the lyrics (especially "maiora dum conamur faveas laboribus," in the third verse) and the way the melody rises to a yearning crescendo.

Following is my attempt at a literal interlinear translation of the lyrics. Please email me if you spot mistakes.

I.
Deus omnium creator,
God, the creator of everything,
rerum mundi moderator,
controller of the things of this world,
crescat cuius es fundator,
may that of which you are the founder grow,
nostra universitas.
our university.
Integri sint curatores,
May the administrators be upstanding,
eruditi professores,
the professors learned,
largiantur donatores
may the donors supply
benepartas copias.
their well-gotten abundance.

II.
Patres nostri huc perlati,
Our fathers, having been carried through to this place,
tuo monitu, pergrati,
very grateful for your guidance,
dedicarunt veritati*
dedicated to truth*
parvum tum collegium,
a college then small,
idque tuo post favore
and after that, by your favor
auctum semper et amore
and by your love, always enlarged,
bonam spem ostentat fore
it shows their hope justified that it would be
templum quasi regium.
a temple almost regal.

*"Veritas" ("truth") is the motto of Harvard.

III.
Qua de spe fac te precamur,
Act regarding which hope, we pray you,
in eventu ne fallamur,
lest we be deceived in the end,
sed maiora dum conamur,
but while we attempt greater things,
faveas laboribus.
may you favor our efforts.
Simul gratias habemus
Likewise, we give thanks
quod tam diu iam floremus,
because we are prospering now so long,
nec audire remittemus
nor will we cease to listen to
veritatis monitus.
the warnings of truth.

IV.
Sic dum civitas manebit,
Thus, while the commonwealth will last,
clarum lumen hic lucebit,
a bright lamp will shine here,
luce angulos replebit,
it will fill up the corners with light,
fugerit obscuritas,
obscurity will flee,
error territus latebit,
deception, frightened, will hide,
virtus vivida valebit,
virtue, energetic, will flourish,
et insignior florebit
and outstandingly will blossom
nostra universitas.
our university.
Amen.