Charles Wheelan's Naked Economics is pretty good as popular books on economics go. It is a very clear basic discussion of a number of the more important economic issues that effect individuals, countries, and the world. The basic lessons, as one would expect are about markets, and incentives. But there are also great discussions about inflation, deflation, interest rates, globalization, the IMF, the World Bank and a whole host of other things.
I thought the discussion of demystifying the fed was great, as I never really knew what exactly the fed does, and how it controls interest rates or the money supply? Wheelan really clears a lot up.
The book has no math, and no graphs or charts, but it manages to get it's point across pretty well. It is peppered with anecdotes about interesting economic thingies, and has a spate of good examples. I enjoyed the book.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Need more time
So much has been going on lately that there has been little time to write in this space. I have been very preoccupied with my two main writing projects. They are both coming along, albeit a bit slower than I had hoped. I went with my unity to VA for 5 days last week. That was a lot of fun, but some work as well. I finally got a real picture of how different things are on the officer side. I have also been spending a lot of time preparing for going to officer school. Mostly I have been saying goodbye to people who I won't see for another six months, though they mostly are people I only see every six months or so anyway. I had some sort of get-together for a lot of friends, sort of a good-bye party. My unit was kind enough to throw a joint good-bye party for me and someone who is retiring.
I have barely read the news in the past two months. I am sure that some things have happened that are worth commenting on, but I have had little time. Nor have I read too many whole books. I hope you will be hearing more from me soon, though it looks like lately I am getting less and less thoughtful, as I have less and less time.
Also, if anyone has any advice about life at Fort Benning, let me know. Thanks.
I have barely read the news in the past two months. I am sure that some things have happened that are worth commenting on, but I have had little time. Nor have I read too many whole books. I hope you will be hearing more from me soon, though it looks like lately I am getting less and less thoughtful, as I have less and less time.
Also, if anyone has any advice about life at Fort Benning, let me know. Thanks.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Review of Segal's Mathematicians under the Nazis
Sanford Segal's Mathematicians Under the Nazis is a long, meticulous and painstakingly researched book about the history of German mathematics, mathematical institutions, and mathematicians during the Nazi era.
The book does a good job of dispelling a number of impressions that one might have of Mathematicians and Nazis. First, there is one reading of Segal's book that can be construed as the history of the petty bickering among the mathematicians in Nazi Germany. German mathematicians quarreled incessantly. Many of them spent a lot of time jockeying for power. Almost none were above political quarrels or denunciations. Many of them got truly swept up in Naziism. Many had little problem with the initial full-scale of removal of Jews from universities. This was especially true in Gottengen, which was a mathematical powerhouse and also a bastion of right-wing activity. Segal traces much of this attitude to the idea of the good German university professor as a civil servant who was in some way beholden to the state.
Secondly, lest one get the impression that the German state was efficient, Segal clears much up there too. First there were many overlapping bureaucracies, all of which competed for resources, and all of which were driven to backstabbing to get ahead.
In the "total state" as Nazi Germany was, there was a push to make all the country's institutions hierarchical. That is, there would be a leader of each institution with a clear command structure. The Nazi state was interested in this, and other types of existing hierarchies mattered little to them. In an attempt to get ahead then, there were various mathematicians who attempted to ingratiate themselves as "fuhrer" of German mathematics.
One of the main contenders for this position was perhaps the most colorful character in the story. Ludwig Bieberbach, who was a rather respected mathematician, attempted to Nazify mathematics itself. In a series of articles, Bieberbach identified a style of mathematics that he thought was Aryan and another that was Jewish. Racially typologizing mathematics was part of a tradition that went back at least as far as Felix Klein, and was used by many, especially Oswald Spengler in his famous Decline of the West. This generated something of a small research program in "Nazi Mathematics".
Segal's book is rife with detail, and tells the stories of many of the Jewish and German mathematicians who were impacted by Naziism, like Courant, Landau, Suss, Blaschke, . . . The Book also details the many mathematical institutions in Nazi Germany, such as Nazi mathematics camps, and mathematics in concentration camps.
The book is long and detailed and was an enlightening read.
The book does a good job of dispelling a number of impressions that one might have of Mathematicians and Nazis. First, there is one reading of Segal's book that can be construed as the history of the petty bickering among the mathematicians in Nazi Germany. German mathematicians quarreled incessantly. Many of them spent a lot of time jockeying for power. Almost none were above political quarrels or denunciations. Many of them got truly swept up in Naziism. Many had little problem with the initial full-scale of removal of Jews from universities. This was especially true in Gottengen, which was a mathematical powerhouse and also a bastion of right-wing activity. Segal traces much of this attitude to the idea of the good German university professor as a civil servant who was in some way beholden to the state.
Secondly, lest one get the impression that the German state was efficient, Segal clears much up there too. First there were many overlapping bureaucracies, all of which competed for resources, and all of which were driven to backstabbing to get ahead.
In the "total state" as Nazi Germany was, there was a push to make all the country's institutions hierarchical. That is, there would be a leader of each institution with a clear command structure. The Nazi state was interested in this, and other types of existing hierarchies mattered little to them. In an attempt to get ahead then, there were various mathematicians who attempted to ingratiate themselves as "fuhrer" of German mathematics.
One of the main contenders for this position was perhaps the most colorful character in the story. Ludwig Bieberbach, who was a rather respected mathematician, attempted to Nazify mathematics itself. In a series of articles, Bieberbach identified a style of mathematics that he thought was Aryan and another that was Jewish. Racially typologizing mathematics was part of a tradition that went back at least as far as Felix Klein, and was used by many, especially Oswald Spengler in his famous Decline of the West. This generated something of a small research program in "Nazi Mathematics".
Segal's book is rife with detail, and tells the stories of many of the Jewish and German mathematicians who were impacted by Naziism, like Courant, Landau, Suss, Blaschke, . . . The Book also details the many mathematical institutions in Nazi Germany, such as Nazi mathematics camps, and mathematics in concentration camps.
The book is long and detailed and was an enlightening read.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Worth seeing
I finally got out to do something relaxing. I saw The Black Book. It is a really good, suspense-filled WWII movie. Strongly recommended.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Class last week
This week, I had a discussion with one of my ethics classes about democracy. It was connected to one of the chapters in the text, and I thought worthy of some good philosophical discussion.
Just so you get a feel for the class: it has about 20 students, almost none of whom are humanities students. Mine may have been one of the only humanities classes they ever took. The students are almost all reasonably bright, and I would say that about 15 of them were not born in the US, and about 17 of them were male.
The discussion was about values that we might want to promote in a society. I gave a rough definition of involving a government where citizens are the authority, and the government is accountable to them, a government where individuals are sovereign, and have a say in the government, and where individuals are reasonably free and vote.
I then threw out the question "Is democracy good?" and I heard one or two "yes"es and one or two "no"s from the class. I asked one of the "no" students to explain. He began by going through a complaint that was essentially Plato's : who wants the masses to make decisions about what to do in a government? Too much democracy couldn't be a good thing, especially where it allowed the people to make many of the routine decisions for a society.
A second student worried that democracies cannot work on too large a scale (contrary to federalist #10) as people with too different an opinion (then the reasonable one, I presume) may end up with a say, as they may form too large a faction.
A third student thought that democracies would be good, if they weren't all corrupt.
A fourth student thought that democracy was good in theory, but if we look at it's history (which for him seemed to be the Iraq war and Nazi Germany ) it led to disasters.
A fifth student claimed that he had no opinion, as he did not care about politics.
A sixth claimed that it really did seem reasonable to have people from other countries vote in US elections, as they are impacted by US foreign policy.
. . .
And so the class went. It was a difficult task in class just clarifying minor points here and there, adding historical caveats and discussions, making certain crucial distinctions, and offering the obvious counterarguments to some of the more ridiculous claims.
Students had little problem airing their antagonism towards western political systems. Mind you, we were not discussing economics, just democracy. I did not ask what good alternatives might be, though there was agreement that all those kinds that are generally accompanied by mass slaughter were also unacceptable.
Perhaps there would have been some concession that though they did not like democracy, there was not better alternative. At the end of the class I was able to ask if there was anyone who wanted to offer a defense of democracy.
The class was silent. At that point we adjurned for the weekend. I left wondering a whole lot of things. Every critique of democracy is on the tips of all my students' tongues. There is little appreciation for the idea that in a democracy you have some control over your fate. There is little appreciation for the fact that most of them came from countries that had no democracies and they are here now, presumably
because it was a better option than their own country. There is little appreciation for the fact that the government is supposed to be them, not something imposed on them. . .
I guess we will see how the discussion picks up next week. I wonder how well I am reading the attitudes of my students. I wonder how well I am reading their education.
Just so you get a feel for the class: it has about 20 students, almost none of whom are humanities students. Mine may have been one of the only humanities classes they ever took. The students are almost all reasonably bright, and I would say that about 15 of them were not born in the US, and about 17 of them were male.
The discussion was about values that we might want to promote in a society. I gave a rough definition of involving a government where citizens are the authority, and the government is accountable to them, a government where individuals are sovereign, and have a say in the government, and where individuals are reasonably free and vote.
I then threw out the question "Is democracy good?" and I heard one or two "yes"es and one or two "no"s from the class. I asked one of the "no" students to explain. He began by going through a complaint that was essentially Plato's : who wants the masses to make decisions about what to do in a government? Too much democracy couldn't be a good thing, especially where it allowed the people to make many of the routine decisions for a society.
A second student worried that democracies cannot work on too large a scale (contrary to federalist #10) as people with too different an opinion (then the reasonable one, I presume) may end up with a say, as they may form too large a faction.
A third student thought that democracies would be good, if they weren't all corrupt.
A fourth student thought that democracy was good in theory, but if we look at it's history (which for him seemed to be the Iraq war and Nazi Germany ) it led to disasters.
A fifth student claimed that he had no opinion, as he did not care about politics.
A sixth claimed that it really did seem reasonable to have people from other countries vote in US elections, as they are impacted by US foreign policy.
. . .
And so the class went. It was a difficult task in class just clarifying minor points here and there, adding historical caveats and discussions, making certain crucial distinctions, and offering the obvious counterarguments to some of the more ridiculous claims.
Students had little problem airing their antagonism towards western political systems. Mind you, we were not discussing economics, just democracy. I did not ask what good alternatives might be, though there was agreement that all those kinds that are generally accompanied by mass slaughter were also unacceptable.
Perhaps there would have been some concession that though they did not like democracy, there was not better alternative. At the end of the class I was able to ask if there was anyone who wanted to offer a defense of democracy.
The class was silent. At that point we adjurned for the weekend. I left wondering a whole lot of things. Every critique of democracy is on the tips of all my students' tongues. There is little appreciation for the idea that in a democracy you have some control over your fate. There is little appreciation for the fact that most of them came from countries that had no democracies and they are here now, presumably
because it was a better option than their own country. There is little appreciation for the fact that the government is supposed to be them, not something imposed on them. . .
I guess we will see how the discussion picks up next week. I wonder how well I am reading the attitudes of my students. I wonder how well I am reading their education.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
silence
I just realized that it has been a long time since I have actually written anything here. I suspect that the universe is conspiring against me. For the past few weeks I seem to have been plagued with an endless stream of very minor, but annoying medical problems: a minor head injury, a cold, a pulled shoulder, a tooth problem . . . Coupled with my obsessive reading and writing and teaching, I have not given my opinion to the world. Sorry world. I hope to resume my regularly scheduled posts in the very near future.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Liberals will always find ways to steal from the poor
You don't have to be Milton Friedman to know how stupid these left-wing fiscal policies are. Take the case of Albert Podell. Today's New York Times has this article on people who keep their homes looking so ugly that even millionaires are repelling women.
This is a man who has donated millions to NYU law school. It is also a man who mostly eats out and has traveled to 163 countries. So this is not a man strapped for cash. But when asked about his ugly apartment here is what he has to say:
No wonder there is a shortage of affordable housing for the poor. The rich lawyers who can figure out how to work the system get the $702/mo sweet houses in SoHo. Then they donate money to other rich people who are part of the same old boys network to learn how to do the same. The the truly poor who could use this apartment have to spend more on a non-rent-stabilized apartment in a worse neighborhood because all the good affordable houses are taken by rich pricks like Albert Podell. It is no wonder that Albert Podell donates to every democrat cause there is. They keep his rent down, so he can afford to take lots of trips and fuel his ego with NYU law centers named after him. He probably sits around wonders why the Republican party is doing nothing to help the poor in New York. The reason should be obvious. Whatever the Republican party will do, some clever NYU lawyer will find a way to steal from the poor.
And he will boast about it.
Most New York students pay more than that for housing. Most families on welfare are paying that much or more. Certainly people who have millions to throw around could afford not to claim they need a rent stabilized apartment.
If we get rid of rent stabilization the rich will have to pay actual market value for their SoHo, Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, or Park Avenue apartments, and the owners of the building will have to pay higher taxes on the income. So why do democrats complain that every one of Bush's tax policies has been designed to help the rich? Probably because it is true. But it is true because all these stupid policies are designed to help the rich, including these dumb do-gooder rent-stabilization laws.
This is a man who has donated millions to NYU law school. It is also a man who mostly eats out and has traveled to 163 countries. So this is not a man strapped for cash. But when asked about his ugly apartment here is what he has to say:
Why does he live here?Why the hell is a policy designed to help poor people pay rent going to support a man who has enough spare cash to make a $2.4 Million contribution?!? Is this what rent stabilization supposed to do?
“Ever hear the words ‘rent stabilized’?” says Mr. Podell, who’s paying $702 for a one bedroom in SoHo. “What do I need a fancy place for? A lot of people want to show off their wealth. It ain’t me, baby.”
No wonder there is a shortage of affordable housing for the poor. The rich lawyers who can figure out how to work the system get the $702/mo sweet houses in SoHo. Then they donate money to other rich people who are part of the same old boys network to learn how to do the same. The the truly poor who could use this apartment have to spend more on a non-rent-stabilized apartment in a worse neighborhood because all the good affordable houses are taken by rich pricks like Albert Podell. It is no wonder that Albert Podell donates to every democrat cause there is. They keep his rent down, so he can afford to take lots of trips and fuel his ego with NYU law centers named after him. He probably sits around wonders why the Republican party is doing nothing to help the poor in New York. The reason should be obvious. Whatever the Republican party will do, some clever NYU lawyer will find a way to steal from the poor.
And he will boast about it.
Most New York students pay more than that for housing. Most families on welfare are paying that much or more. Certainly people who have millions to throw around could afford not to claim they need a rent stabilized apartment.
If we get rid of rent stabilization the rich will have to pay actual market value for their SoHo, Upper West Side, Brooklyn Heights, or Park Avenue apartments, and the owners of the building will have to pay higher taxes on the income. So why do democrats complain that every one of Bush's tax policies has been designed to help the rich? Probably because it is true. But it is true because all these stupid policies are designed to help the rich, including these dumb do-gooder rent-stabilization laws.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
When is an anti-abortionist's birthday?
You would think that if one took the philosophical position of being anti-abortion, then their birthday would be a fairly irrelevant date. The relevant date would be the date that they were conceived, for that is the date that life starts. The date one is born is not that special for them. Yet I have never heard of anyone celebrating one year of life when the child is three months old. The relevant milestones are still in years from birth. So I wonder how seriously anti-abortionists take the idea that it is the day of conception as the day life begins.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Syracuse
The Army sent me to Syracuse for a few days. It was cold. It was pretty boring. But I survived. The Army wanted to give me and 19 others a very long lecture on safety. To their credit, we got to stay in a pretty nice place, and it wasn't a bad experience overall. The 19 others were good people, and I learned a lot from them.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Gandhi he's not
Here is a paragraph from Monday's New York Times:
So let me ask you, since when was the intafada an act of civil disobedience? It is an armed uprising. And if someone gets arrested for throwing stones during some protest, by what rights is it an act of civil disobedience? I mean seriously, how do you throw stones during a civil disobedience? How does this propaganda get by the copyeditor?
Issa Khalil, 25, broke in, agitated. “We never see anything good in our lives,” he said. He was arrested for throwing stones in the first intifada, the civil disobedience that began in the late 1980s and led to the 1993 Oslo accords with Israel. He was arrested again in the second uprising as the agreement faltered.
So let me ask you, since when was the intafada an act of civil disobedience? It is an armed uprising. And if someone gets arrested for throwing stones during some protest, by what rights is it an act of civil disobedience? I mean seriously, how do you throw stones during a civil disobedience? How does this propaganda get by the copyeditor?
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
My Very Army Purim
It has been a crazy week and I had almost no time to do anything that I needed to do. The weekend started on Friday when I spent the morning taking care of school things. Then in the Afternoon I had to pack up and head to Fort Totten and then from there to Fort Dix. As always, this was a rather lengthy process and we ended up getting in really late.
We got in and then there was some setting up and getting rooms and stuff like that. But eventually we got to sleep. Saturday was spent doing physical stuff. First the Leadership Reaction Course and then the Confidence course. The first got me kicked in the face a bit, an injury that put me out of commission for the last 20 minutes of the course and kept me in pain for the next day or so. I still have some residual sensitivity and trouble with chewing gum. But it'll pass.
The Confidence Course was just hard, but I managed, despite the pain to do all the obstacles. I am still sore. It'll take a few days to get the soreness out of my shoulders.
After dinner chow we got back to the barracks, where thanks to some weird circumstance, I had my own room. So I read the Megillah myself. I borrowed my father's. (It is a really nice one.) I am pretty out of practice, but I managed to make it through the whole thing without breaking my teeth. (That's more than I can say for the confidence course.) I was going to offer to read it for anyone who wanted, but one never knows what schedules will be like at these battle assemblies. So I thought that it was better that people do not rely on me for their megillah, and have me not show up. Besides I saw some Lubavitchers on Fort Dix on Saturday afternoon, I am sure they did the reading for the permanent party.
On Saturday night there the whole unit went out to the post bar and we had a goodbye party for our First Sergeant who was being promoted out of the unit.
On Sunday morning after a few hours of sleep we woke up at 04:30 and worked out for about an hour and a half. It was cold and painful, but it felt good at the end. We got changed, ate morning chow and then had a few ceremonies, cleaned up and left in the afternoon.
On the way back I got a ride with one of my Staff Sergeants. We stopped off on the New Jersey Turnpike for lunch. Outside of the Starbucks at the rest stop I saw this very religious-looking man waiting around for his family or for his coffee, I'm not sure. I instinctively wished him a happy Purim. and went back to my Sergeant who was picking out a good pair of polarized sunglasses.
When we got to the parking lot to be on our way, the religious-looking man was there as well with what I assume was his wife and two kids. He asked us if he can give me mishloach manot. I said that if he can do it soon, then "sure". So he went in to his car and gave us hamantashen and some orange beverage. My hispanic Sergeant was a bit puzzled by why a total stranger was giving us food in a parking lot, but he accepted it politely. I sort of explained that this was a holiday where we did this and we went along.
In the subway people were particularly polite, thanking me for my service . . . It is actually something that we appreciate, even though we may not show it.
I got to Flatbush to have the traditional Purim meal with my grandparents. I was walking through the streets (with "D") and everyone was dressed up in their Purim costumes. For the first time I really did not feel out of place in uniform in the streets. I played with my nieces and nephews till I had to go home and collapse out of sheer tiredness.
We got in and then there was some setting up and getting rooms and stuff like that. But eventually we got to sleep. Saturday was spent doing physical stuff. First the Leadership Reaction Course and then the Confidence course. The first got me kicked in the face a bit, an injury that put me out of commission for the last 20 minutes of the course and kept me in pain for the next day or so. I still have some residual sensitivity and trouble with chewing gum. But it'll pass.
The Confidence Course was just hard, but I managed, despite the pain to do all the obstacles. I am still sore. It'll take a few days to get the soreness out of my shoulders.
After dinner chow we got back to the barracks, where thanks to some weird circumstance, I had my own room. So I read the Megillah myself. I borrowed my father's. (It is a really nice one.) I am pretty out of practice, but I managed to make it through the whole thing without breaking my teeth. (That's more than I can say for the confidence course.) I was going to offer to read it for anyone who wanted, but one never knows what schedules will be like at these battle assemblies. So I thought that it was better that people do not rely on me for their megillah, and have me not show up. Besides I saw some Lubavitchers on Fort Dix on Saturday afternoon, I am sure they did the reading for the permanent party.
On Saturday night there the whole unit went out to the post bar and we had a goodbye party for our First Sergeant who was being promoted out of the unit.
On Sunday morning after a few hours of sleep we woke up at 04:30 and worked out for about an hour and a half. It was cold and painful, but it felt good at the end. We got changed, ate morning chow and then had a few ceremonies, cleaned up and left in the afternoon.
On the way back I got a ride with one of my Staff Sergeants. We stopped off on the New Jersey Turnpike for lunch. Outside of the Starbucks at the rest stop I saw this very religious-looking man waiting around for his family or for his coffee, I'm not sure. I instinctively wished him a happy Purim. and went back to my Sergeant who was picking out a good pair of polarized sunglasses.
When we got to the parking lot to be on our way, the religious-looking man was there as well with what I assume was his wife and two kids. He asked us if he can give me mishloach manot. I said that if he can do it soon, then "sure". So he went in to his car and gave us hamantashen and some orange beverage. My hispanic Sergeant was a bit puzzled by why a total stranger was giving us food in a parking lot, but he accepted it politely. I sort of explained that this was a holiday where we did this and we went along.
In the subway people were particularly polite, thanking me for my service . . . It is actually something that we appreciate, even though we may not show it.
I got to Flatbush to have the traditional Purim meal with my grandparents. I was walking through the streets (with "D") and everyone was dressed up in their Purim costumes. For the first time I really did not feel out of place in uniform in the streets. I played with my nieces and nephews till I had to go home and collapse out of sheer tiredness.
Review of Dennett's Breaking the Spell
There is an important but often overlooked piece of philosophical methodology. Generally one can ask the following question: Does X exist or not? Then a fight breaks out. Some philosophers say yes, some say no. Let us say that a good number of philosophers then say "no, there is no X" but there are a very large number of people who still disagree. Perhaps common sense disagrees. It doesn't change the fact that X might still not exist, but they are then left with a very important question: Why do so many people believe that X exists?
Daniel Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell tries to answer this question for the philosophy of religion. The main question we start with is about the nature of God and religion. Philosophers have taken to answering "no" to the question of whether or not God exists or religion is true. But then it is left to anthropologists and philosophers to solve the mystery of why most of us believe that it is.
There is a new trend at least for the past 10 years or so to try to marshal the resources of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, economics, and sociology, to come up with an answer that is more sophisticated than the ones given like Critias in Ancient Greece, or Marx or Freud. Pascal Boyer made a good attempt a few years ago. So have others. Dennett wrote a book that is meant to be both popular and thorough.
Much of what Dennett writes is repeated from others, though Dennett's is a very good synthesis. Dennett's book is also strongly polemical. He believes that religion is too harmful to just leave alone.
The argument goes something like this: Humans have a developed system for detecting intentional agents. That is, we know when we are dealing with a another person who is doing something on purpose, and we know something about others who know that we do things on purpose. So we are a species that is capable of positing agency and things like that.
Secondly Dennett makes a case for memes. Memes are the features of culture that are capable of being passed around. A meme can be a tune, a phrase, a language, a fad or whatever. Memes get passed around and replicated pretty much the same way that genes do.
So put this all together with evolutionary biology and you get a theory that says that humans are quite satisfied positing more intentional agents than may exist. Those may be our supernatural agents (and there is good cognitive science evidence which describes how circumscribed our religious conceptions may be). There is the possibility that these religious memes do enhance either our own (or even possibly) our group fitness and ultimately led us to the religious stage where we are today.
Naturally, religious people will not want their religions deconstructed the way he does, but the fact is, there is no principled reason to look at humans and religious phenomena any differently than anything else.
I am overall sympathetic to his project. I thought Boyer, however dense and dull the read was essentially right, though perhaps not comprehensive. Dennett's book is for more general audiences. But I
found the book mildly annoying sometimes. For one, Dennett is bit full of himself. He thinks he's got it all figured out. Now, he might, but coming off like that is off-putting. Also, there is no reason he had to spend the first 75 pages telling us that this is an important question to ask. If we didn't think it was a good question, we wouldn't bother reading the book. I really do not need to waste as much time as I did on not even getting to the question of the book.
That being said, this book deserves a wide readership, undoubtedly it needs a wider readership then it is certain to get. Read it.
(BTW, Leon Wieseltier's review in The New York Times is among the worst reviews ever written of a philosophy book. Dennett is not a religious person obviously, and it not very well informed about what religion is. But he does suggest in his book that when we do get around to studying religion from a properly scientific perspective it would have to be done by a person who has a real deep understanding of the religion. Wieseltier does not have the same methodological compunctions. His review reminds me of some rabbis and fundamentalist Christians I've encountered who have no problem dismissing evolutionary theory by insisting that their grandmother was not an ape. "I have pictures of her" QED. Wieseltier has no need to be competent enough to judge the science, or even think about science. He can just botch Hume, ignore the fact that science produces real results, and believe he has thusly refuted Dennett. Man, even when the Times is being conservative they screw it up.)
Daniel Dennett's book, Breaking the Spell tries to answer this question for the philosophy of religion. The main question we start with is about the nature of God and religion. Philosophers have taken to answering "no" to the question of whether or not God exists or religion is true. But then it is left to anthropologists and philosophers to solve the mystery of why most of us believe that it is.
There is a new trend at least for the past 10 years or so to try to marshal the resources of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, economics, and sociology, to come up with an answer that is more sophisticated than the ones given like Critias in Ancient Greece, or Marx or Freud. Pascal Boyer made a good attempt a few years ago. So have others. Dennett wrote a book that is meant to be both popular and thorough.
Much of what Dennett writes is repeated from others, though Dennett's is a very good synthesis. Dennett's book is also strongly polemical. He believes that religion is too harmful to just leave alone.
The argument goes something like this: Humans have a developed system for detecting intentional agents. That is, we know when we are dealing with a another person who is doing something on purpose, and we know something about others who know that we do things on purpose. So we are a species that is capable of positing agency and things like that.
Secondly Dennett makes a case for memes. Memes are the features of culture that are capable of being passed around. A meme can be a tune, a phrase, a language, a fad or whatever. Memes get passed around and replicated pretty much the same way that genes do.
So put this all together with evolutionary biology and you get a theory that says that humans are quite satisfied positing more intentional agents than may exist. Those may be our supernatural agents (and there is good cognitive science evidence which describes how circumscribed our religious conceptions may be). There is the possibility that these religious memes do enhance either our own (or even possibly) our group fitness and ultimately led us to the religious stage where we are today.
Naturally, religious people will not want their religions deconstructed the way he does, but the fact is, there is no principled reason to look at humans and religious phenomena any differently than anything else.
I am overall sympathetic to his project. I thought Boyer, however dense and dull the read was essentially right, though perhaps not comprehensive. Dennett's book is for more general audiences. But I
found the book mildly annoying sometimes. For one, Dennett is bit full of himself. He thinks he's got it all figured out. Now, he might, but coming off like that is off-putting. Also, there is no reason he had to spend the first 75 pages telling us that this is an important question to ask. If we didn't think it was a good question, we wouldn't bother reading the book. I really do not need to waste as much time as I did on not even getting to the question of the book.
That being said, this book deserves a wide readership, undoubtedly it needs a wider readership then it is certain to get. Read it.
(BTW, Leon Wieseltier's review in The New York Times is among the worst reviews ever written of a philosophy book. Dennett is not a religious person obviously, and it not very well informed about what religion is. But he does suggest in his book that when we do get around to studying religion from a properly scientific perspective it would have to be done by a person who has a real deep understanding of the religion. Wieseltier does not have the same methodological compunctions. His review reminds me of some rabbis and fundamentalist Christians I've encountered who have no problem dismissing evolutionary theory by insisting that their grandmother was not an ape. "I have pictures of her" QED. Wieseltier has no need to be competent enough to judge the science, or even think about science. He can just botch Hume, ignore the fact that science produces real results, and believe he has thusly refuted Dennett. Man, even when the Times is being conservative they screw it up.)
All is OK with my CF-M34
Yesterday I managed to drop my CF-M34 and I am happy to report that there is not a dent, scratch or problem. I was actually checking my email on the top of a flight of stone stairs and it fell out of my hand, on to the floor, down all the steps and crashed in to the wall at the bottom of the landing and I was able to just continue checking my email when I got to the bottom of the stairs.
Friday, February 16, 2007
A plea to you "normal" visioned folks out there
When I was young, my parents discovered I was somewhat colorblind. For the most part it didn't interfere with my life much. (Recently I discovered it would preclude my joining the bomb-squad.) But while it was sometimes annoying, I guess I just never noticed it.
Some of the most annoying repercussions of color-blindness has been for me in the areas of scientific reading. Way too often I have had to spend a long time squinting and carefully trying to figure out what a scientific graph or chart was trying to plot or illustrate when the authors were too insensitive to consider that they should not use only colors that color-blind people are unable to distinguish. The point of colors in graphs are to make it easier to grasp a larger amount of information, not harder.
This site does some great advocating for this. I wish more people would take it seriously. The site also has some great simulations of how color-blind people see colors. I think I have had hundreds of people over the course of my life ask me what color their shirt was. If I am feeling playful, I'd just say that I can't see colors and so their shirt is transparent. Generally I just say that it is hard to answer since I do not know how see colors. Generally I ask people to imagine an old TV that doesn't have all the colors, not quite a black and white one, but an early color one where there weren't 16 million colors. That probably approximates it. But It is a bit hard to explain, and you should all look at this site before asking me what color yourshirt is.
(Hat tip: Joseph A Ross in Nature.)
Some of the most annoying repercussions of color-blindness has been for me in the areas of scientific reading. Way too often I have had to spend a long time squinting and carefully trying to figure out what a scientific graph or chart was trying to plot or illustrate when the authors were too insensitive to consider that they should not use only colors that color-blind people are unable to distinguish. The point of colors in graphs are to make it easier to grasp a larger amount of information, not harder.
This site does some great advocating for this. I wish more people would take it seriously. The site also has some great simulations of how color-blind people see colors. I think I have had hundreds of people over the course of my life ask me what color their shirt was. If I am feeling playful, I'd just say that I can't see colors and so their shirt is transparent. Generally I just say that it is hard to answer since I do not know how see colors. Generally I ask people to imagine an old TV that doesn't have all the colors, not quite a black and white one, but an early color one where there weren't 16 million colors. That probably approximates it. But It is a bit hard to explain, and you should all look at this site before asking me what color yourshirt is.
(Hat tip: Joseph A Ross in Nature.)
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Three articles
In today's NY Times there are three science-related articles that merit comment.
First, we have an article on facial recognition. The article perports to talk about humans and the fact that we tend to see faces in all sorts of things, like clouds, cinnamon buns and grilled cheese sandwiches. There was some talk about the neuro science behind the phenomenon and some minor remarks about the applications for facial recognition sofware. This article was praticularly light on the science, even by ScienceTimes standards. But the question I have, and I think this is a more important question is why are these so often religious figures who show up in toast, and not say, Jay Leno, or someone else equally recognizable. Where is George Bush? Where is Hitler? (Or Mohammed. (OK, we know why not him.)) Is it that these are the only ones that make the news that people look out for? Or is there a deeper connection? The fact that we tend to anthropomorphisize things is not surprising.
The second article is about Carl Sagan. Sagan was a great scientist and expositor of science. However, his widow is probably not a good expositor of anything. First, she wins today's award for "Most gratuitious reference to the US involvement in the Middle East". Here is a quote from the article:
Finally, there is an article about a young earth creationist who got a PhD in geosciences. Here is another case of the article missing the point, but is nontetheless interesting. The article clearly shows a debate regarding the qualifications of someone who fails to conform to the academic orthodoxy. Now, everyone knows, that writing a PhD is often an excercize in Uncle Tomming. (I am not including myself here. My PhD advisor might not be the most nurturing person in the world, but we do see eye-to-eye on my project, and he is pretty helpful.) Not all people in biology believe in every bit of evolutionary theory they are use in their dissertation. I have seen PhDs in bible studies that presuppose the documentary hypothesis where their author has personally told me they do not believe in it. I have spoken to people who write PhDs in ethics that no sane human can believe. But as a colleague has told me recently that 90% of a PhD is listening to your thesis supervisor.
It is clear that even the very debate on whether this person should be barred from teaching and stuff is hypocritical and academically self-righteous. The whole point of the system is not to perpetuate scientific dogmas, but to insure that the people who are granted research funds and podiums to teach, and lesiure time to pursue the research are qualified. Not only that, we constantly talk about diversity, and I can't imagine someone who will contribute more to the diversity of a geology department than someone who doesn't believe in it. Moreover, this person is undoubtedly qualified, and the system is designed to insure that he is eminently qualified. Every day when he walked in to his lab for the first year of his research, he was hit with jibes and softballs that he undoubtedly spent time thinking about and coming up with snappy comebacks to. By the second year, since he made it through that trial, when his labmates started to have to take him seriously as a geologist, they must have started with the harder and harder questions, forcing him to be better and better at presenting it, and refining his position and making him learn to argue for it better. That is how good research should get done.
Conservatives of any sort face the same pressures in political theory as creationists do in biology departments, or meat eaters in philosophy departments, or sane people in performance art. The list goes on. The academy should be a place where one's credentials speak for themselves. It should not be a place where we look to your religion, sexual orientation, or beliefs about anything. Sure the research that the person will do for the rest of his career might be unorthodox, and any university hiring him might want to ask "what sort of research will you be pursuing?" and "will it embarrass us" or "will any of it actually get in to academic journals?" or "will you be teaching anything non-standard as part of lower level classes in geology?" but that is it. I would of course ban him from teaching high-schools, as there the goal is to disseminate the scientific orthodoxy. Teaching "alternate theories" of science is for a place of research, like a university, where everyone understands the standard account.
I frequently worry about what I can present to my colleagues. I am sure I think quite differently than many of them. And of course when I look for a job I will have to kiss-up to the Man. But the very idea that people would think it makes sense to deny a sopt in a PhD program to a qualified applicant solely on the basis of weird beliefs about the going paradigm strikes me as antithetical to the core of honest scholarship.
First, we have an article on facial recognition. The article perports to talk about humans and the fact that we tend to see faces in all sorts of things, like clouds, cinnamon buns and grilled cheese sandwiches. There was some talk about the neuro science behind the phenomenon and some minor remarks about the applications for facial recognition sofware. This article was praticularly light on the science, even by ScienceTimes standards. But the question I have, and I think this is a more important question is why are these so often religious figures who show up in toast, and not say, Jay Leno, or someone else equally recognizable. Where is George Bush? Where is Hitler? (Or Mohammed. (OK, we know why not him.)) Is it that these are the only ones that make the news that people look out for? Or is there a deeper connection? The fact that we tend to anthropomorphisize things is not surprising.
The second article is about Carl Sagan. Sagan was a great scientist and expositor of science. However, his widow is probably not a good expositor of anything. First, she wins today's award for "Most gratuitious reference to the US involvement in the Middle East". Here is a quote from the article:
In the wake of Sept. 11 and the attacks on the teaching of evolution in this country, she said, a tacit truce between science and religion that has existed since the time of Galileo started breaking down. “A lot of scientists were mad as hell, and they weren’t going to take it anymore,” Ms. Druyan said over lunch recently.I am a bit confused. First, what does 9/11 have to do with teaching evolution? Is this a post hoc fallacy trying to get us to think they are related? Is it pointing out that the truce that existed in the Muslim world between science and religion till Galileo prevented terrorism? Is she saying that scientists were mad that religious fanatics flew jetliners in to the world trade center and they are mad as hell and not going to take that? (What have scientists done to protest that?) So in short, I have not idea what she is talking about. And if you think that this was just some random quote, read the whole thing. She keeps refering to the middle east, as if that was forefront on Carl Sagan's mind, and somehow science will save us from something.
Finally, there is an article about a young earth creationist who got a PhD in geosciences. Here is another case of the article missing the point, but is nontetheless interesting. The article clearly shows a debate regarding the qualifications of someone who fails to conform to the academic orthodoxy. Now, everyone knows, that writing a PhD is often an excercize in Uncle Tomming. (I am not including myself here. My PhD advisor might not be the most nurturing person in the world, but we do see eye-to-eye on my project, and he is pretty helpful.) Not all people in biology believe in every bit of evolutionary theory they are use in their dissertation. I have seen PhDs in bible studies that presuppose the documentary hypothesis where their author has personally told me they do not believe in it. I have spoken to people who write PhDs in ethics that no sane human can believe. But as a colleague has told me recently that 90% of a PhD is listening to your thesis supervisor.
It is clear that even the very debate on whether this person should be barred from teaching and stuff is hypocritical and academically self-righteous. The whole point of the system is not to perpetuate scientific dogmas, but to insure that the people who are granted research funds and podiums to teach, and lesiure time to pursue the research are qualified. Not only that, we constantly talk about diversity, and I can't imagine someone who will contribute more to the diversity of a geology department than someone who doesn't believe in it. Moreover, this person is undoubtedly qualified, and the system is designed to insure that he is eminently qualified. Every day when he walked in to his lab for the first year of his research, he was hit with jibes and softballs that he undoubtedly spent time thinking about and coming up with snappy comebacks to. By the second year, since he made it through that trial, when his labmates started to have to take him seriously as a geologist, they must have started with the harder and harder questions, forcing him to be better and better at presenting it, and refining his position and making him learn to argue for it better. That is how good research should get done.
Conservatives of any sort face the same pressures in political theory as creationists do in biology departments, or meat eaters in philosophy departments, or sane people in performance art. The list goes on. The academy should be a place where one's credentials speak for themselves. It should not be a place where we look to your religion, sexual orientation, or beliefs about anything. Sure the research that the person will do for the rest of his career might be unorthodox, and any university hiring him might want to ask "what sort of research will you be pursuing?" and "will it embarrass us" or "will any of it actually get in to academic journals?" or "will you be teaching anything non-standard as part of lower level classes in geology?" but that is it. I would of course ban him from teaching high-schools, as there the goal is to disseminate the scientific orthodoxy. Teaching "alternate theories" of science is for a place of research, like a university, where everyone understands the standard account.
I frequently worry about what I can present to my colleagues. I am sure I think quite differently than many of them. And of course when I look for a job I will have to kiss-up to the Man. But the very idea that people would think it makes sense to deny a sopt in a PhD program to a qualified applicant solely on the basis of weird beliefs about the going paradigm strikes me as antithetical to the core of honest scholarship.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
