He is not easy on David Corn of The Nation. Nor should he be. It was Corn who started the whole 16 words imbroglio so many moons ago, based on Wilson's lies. At best his judgement is suspect, at worst he deliberately misled, as he has accused Bush for many years. Hitchen's explains:
In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that:The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.
After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."
The fact that Corn doesn't disclose outright that he was one of the 'adminstration critics' says a great deal about his journalistic ethic.]]>
Ha! Quite funny...
]]>A Discovery Institute talk on the book was recently aired on C-SPAN, watch it here.
]]>I'm halfway through, it is well done. (even handed, as well)
]]>He says up front most creationists are intellectually dishonest. That fits arguments I've heard made by Young Earth creationists. But I wonder, is an intellectually dishonest creationist one who believes God somehow is the cause of reality as we perceive it or are they of the YEC variety, which requires science be founded first in their interpretation of the biblical creation myth?
I don't know which case Dan is using the term, but I've noticed blurring distinctions between the two cases to confer illegitimacy to the former is a very common tactic (intellectually dishonest as well) among darwinism's defenders.
He praises Mike Gene because "because he takes the first step and admits the blatantly obvious: that the existence of God is not a scientific issue, but a theological one."
First, this is technically innacurate. the existence of God is a metaphysical issue, not theological. Theology considers the nature of God and his laws - God's existence is assumed.
Second, the non-existence of God is also metaphysical. Science doesn't prove or disprove God. In fact, science is by its very nature limited to describing the mechanics of reality. The ultimate questions cannot be answered by science (to believe otherwise is sitll belief), so we look to philosophy to give meaning to observation. It's a human thing and based in belief, whether you start with the premise the material/natural is all there is or not.
I have this in mind when he concludes, pointing to this post at Telic Thoughts as proof of 'where the interests of IDers lay':
Thus far at least, all of the books mentioned are either explicitly dealing with religious concerns, and/or are very misleading about science
My own entry, which immediately preceded Dan's trackback, had 3 which touched on matters of faith, 4 on economics and/or political theory and 4 children's books (they are important to me, becuase they are important to my 5 year old!).
The post before mine had half touching religion and the remainder related to computer programming. The other two posts were largely religious/phisosophical.
Now, is Dan deliberately misleading or being lazy? I'd say the former, consiidering the way he used the 'creationist' slur throughout.
]]>I've looked at his prior posts and see nothing indicating depth where this issue is concerned. The rub with ID proponents isn't and has never been 'evolution', but the Darwinian inference those changes and ultimately life itself is a result of undirected mutations and chance. This is not provable by any experimental standard Indian Cowboy would consider good science. I'd challenge him and others to point me to the experiment designed to observe random and undirected mutations over vast time without any intelligence influencing the mutations!
From a blog entry I wrote a few months back:
When critics dismiss ID arguments out of hand as 'not Science', they attempt a pass on addressing the arguments that are being put forward for this theory.If one were to study intelligence and come up with general rules or properties of intelligence, would critics consider that science? If they were then to apply those rules to observable and documented processes or structures in nature (for instance, the ATP synthase motor), is that science?
The fact is, critics do not know if the micro-evolutionary process of adaptation is built in (ie 'designed') or if it is part of a larger purposeless process. They start with the premise it must be the latter and circle around to prove their original premise.
NDE proponents do not know that natural processes account for the origin of life. That is simply a matter of their own faith! Got gaps? Natural selection or infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters eventually producing the works of the old Bard is the answer!
I'm wide open to science and believe in the scientific method and the rigor of review and critique. It is critical to a decent understanding of our physical world. But I also know that with humans, the philosophic framework by which we view the world around us informs our conclusions about that world. Naturalists deny this when they deny their faith in science to provide the answers and their faith that observable, quantifiable nature is the means to all ends of understanding.
The bottom line? Critics should practice a little more intellectual honesty with their own faith based narrative and acknowledge the science upon which the nascent ID movement draws the design inference.
Is anyone game for polite exchange on the topic? Help resurrect this old post on my forum and join in!
... one leading and downright terrifying fact stands out. And that is that the people's elected representives do not know what the government is doing. The government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. The people's elected representatives are supposed to be in control of that government in the name of the people they represent. That is their job.The situation we are in, and have been in for several generations, is one in which intelligent, representative government is increasingly impossible, simply because of the sheer size and scope of government. If we want a government that is controlled by our representatives, we need a government that is sufficiently limited in size and scope for it to be humanly possible for our representatives to know and understand what it is doing and what is being suggested that it do.
For the people's representatives to regain control of the government, its size and scope must be radically reduced.
Comparisons to train wrecks hardly do justice to what's at stake. It's the wreckage of our country that is waiting to happen, and has been happening. And it's been happening and will continue to happen for the very simple reason that the government of the United States is out of control in the most literal sense. It is out of the control of the American people and their elected representatives. That control must be reestablished.
Lou reports on the heroic actions of the National Guard during Katrina, noting the lack of media attention to this incrediblly under-reported story:
Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there.
From the Dome, the Louisiana Guard's main command ran at least 2,500 troops who rode out the storm inside the city, a dozen emergency shelters, 200-plus boats, dozens of high-water vehicles, 150 helicopters, and a triage and medical center that handled up to 5,000 patients (and delivered 7 babies). The Guard command headquarters also coordinated efforts of the police, firefighters and scores of volunteers after the storm knocked out local radio, as well as other regular military and other state Guard units.
Dolinar's post is lengthy and will make you proud to be American, because the US Military has perhaps the most intelligent logistical operations. Ever.
]]>