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Assessing the “Historical Ties” Argument for Zionism

December 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment

[A recent conversation prompted me to get clear on the issues below. As in the past, my treatment owes much to Michael Neumann's excellent “The Case Against Israel.” I'll say it again: If you read only one book on the Palestine-Israeli conflict, make it this one.]

Defenders of Zionism—here, the idea that Jewish people are entitled to Israel—almost always begin from the assertion that “the Jews” inhabited the area in question some very, very long time ago.

In fairness, this is not the entirety of the Zionist argument; still, the point is always made to bear more weight than it should. For example: If Jews lived in the region long-ago, well, so did Arabs and a lot of other groups; some of these predate the Israeli settlement. Indeed, there is probably no spot of inhabited earth to which somebody else did not have title at some distant point; this poses no pressing moral issue for any of us (including the Zionists)—So why should it be so central to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?

The most we can cede the Zionists is that certain Jews had some claim to certain parts of what is now Israel—some very long time ago. What we cannot say is which particular Jews had claims to which parts, and whether these persons are the direct ancestors of the Jews pressing contemporary claims, and whether those claims are to those actual parts. Yet this is precisely what we need if the “claims” in question are to fit the normal mold of modern proprietary justice.

Worse, even if we could establish with certainly that this ancestor had legal title to this parcel of land, and this modern person is his direct descendant—that wouldn’t be enough. First, property claims can be given up—sold, exchanged, abandoned. Sometimes they are gotten by coercive or fraudulent means and thus were never legitimate in the first place. Without knowing the whole history of exchanges in which a given parcel is embedded, we have no way to know whether a given later claim is just.

Second, as Neumann warns, “descendant” should never be conflated with “rightful inheritor.” Since when does property automatically fall to the biological offspring of-the holder? This isn’t the way we adjudicate property claims in the modern world. (Nor is it the way the Zionists set up the laws in the new government they formed.) If we are going to assess Zionist claims according to ancient rather than contemporary norms of inheritance—that is, if we are going to abandon that “modern propriety justice’” that holds in every other case—will we go the whole hog, and let Jewish property only pass to the male descendants, by way of each eldest son? That would warrant a radical redistribution of Israeli holdings, to say the least. (And what of other norms, unrelated to land? Will we permit contemporary Israelis to re-enslave the descendants of the Canaanites their ancestors overcame? This kind of reckoning gets ugly fast.)

***

Perhaps we might endorse nationalist land claims on the basis of group—“peoples”—rather than individuals: “The Jews” lived in what is now Israel; therefore, “the Jews” are entitled to it today.

One problem: The Israelites, by their own account, came to the land in question as invaders and conquerors. Do a thief’s descendants have a right to inherit items he stole? Typically, one is not entitled to stolen property even if the theft is many times removed from the transaction by which she came by it.

It may be said that after so many generations, we can let sleeping dogs lie. But the issue is more complicated. The Hebrews were just one in a long string of conquerors—the Canaanites before them, the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks (etc.) after. What warrant is there for plucking one “people” from the middle of this long chain, and saying, these, but none ofthe others, have the legitimate claim. Nor is there anything about the character of the Israeli tenure that might bolster that claim among the rest; it is distinguished only my its tenuousness, brevity, and the smallness of its geographic footprint.

The Jewish case is typical: In the ancient world, large displacements of people—“peoples,” no less—were typically full of violence and theft, and the history of world leading up to the present distribution of people is chock full of such large displacements. This makes it unlikely that anybody, anywhere has a just claim to the spot of land they occupy.

It also makes it impossible to figure out who should rightfully own any spot. Imagine a bicycle which has for eons been alternately stolen, sold, traded, lent, abandoned, split into parts which have been alternately stolen, sold, traded, lent, etc.; imagine that some of the “thefts” were legal according to the laws of the day or were dagger made so retroactively—and that some of the bequeathments which were legal, customary or moral at the time would not be so under our own laws and norms.

A “long-ago” claim to land is like a claim to this bicycle: First, there is no obvious, non-arbitrary principle of justice according to which these competing “less-than-just” claims could be sorted out. Second, there is a practical problem: Even if we had the principle, the empirical history of who took what from whom, when, is lost to us. We simply have no data to apply a principle to.

This is why virtually zero of the potential claimants to long-ago land press these claims, and why nobody would pay any attention if they did. (The Italians are not going to ask for the lands of the old Roman Empire, nor would even the most liberal among us demand all of the U.S. for the Native Americans.) The Zionists have a colossal burden of proof in showing what is special about their claim, or what is dead wrong about all of those that don’t get pursued—that is, what is dead wrong about the prevailing norm that those claims oughtn’t be pursued. (A norm, mind you, that they would support in every other case.)

One caveat: It is tempting to conclude that, if present land claims are all irremediably unjust, then “anything goes” in the way of re-distribution. (What’s wrong with stealing from a thief?) But this doesn’t follow. It doesn’t even follow that every legitimate claim—if we could figure those out—should be honored. As Neumann notes, even if the current inhabitants of the U.S. do not have a just claim to America, to force them from this land and “redistribute” it to the Native Americans (or to anyone else) would itself constitute a new and prohibitively grave injustice—or, if you like, would require new and prohibitively grave injustices in the course of enforcement. (Note that this is abundantly not the case in, say, returning the Occupied Territories and the post-1967 settlements to the Palestinians.)

The principle that makes this so is the same one behind the legal device of construction easements: Occasionally, a homeowner finds that the edge of her house rests on a neighbor’s property. In this event, it is almost never the case that the house must be destroyed or rebuilt; the property line is simply adjusted. The neighbor has a claim to that strip of land, but pursuing that claim would cause such hardship to an innocent party—the first homeowner—that he is not legally allowed to act upon it.

The easement example suggests a final point. Let’s assume that the Zionist claim to Palestine is legitimate, and that it is absolutely moral to pursue it. This still does not mean it should be pursued in just any old willy-nilly fashion. Implementing a claim requires both a just process and a proper authority to do the implementing.

By analogy: I work at a bank; a parent once came in with a check made out to her adult child who was away at college; the parent wanted to cash the check for herself. When this was denied, she pressed the point that she was paying for her child’s schooling and upkeep, and he owed her the money; she even offered to show receipts for some dorm furniture she’d bought. Of course, this was all worthless to the case. Even if she’d had a contract ordering her son to repay her for tuition on that date, it wouldn’t have worked. The point is not that she didn’t have a real claim to the money—she did. The point is that I wasn’t allowed to adjudicate her claim. I couldn’t just dip into his bank account and hand it to her. Nor could I, nor say, her local butcher or a random bystander, kick her kid’s teeth in, take his bike and sell it to get his mom the money. Enforcement of the claim is a job for the court system—and you can bet they can’t go about it in any way they please, either.

So even if “the Jews” had a right to move into Israel, it does not follow that David ben-Gurion had a right to form an army and unilaterally force the Arabs out, on his specific timetable, without compensation, warning, or arrangements made to facilitate the move.

* * *

In conclusion, there is an ironic sense in which none of the above really matters. For Zionism was never about “living in” the land but rather about ruling over it. The P/I “conflict” would be much simpler if the issue were just habitation. Indeed, the conflict was much simpler—or rather, nonexistent—until it became clear to the Arab population that their new Jewish neighbors were not content to continue living peacefully by their side, but rather intended to exercise sovereignty over them.

This is the heart of the issue: Even if we knew what we do not—that the Israelis had a claim to Israel, and the right to pursue that claim—and how to do this in a moral way and by whose authority—none of that would license anything like the racial-apartheid occupation state we know.

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Bill O’Reilly, Law & Order, and Right Wing Immigration Policy in Moderate’s Clothing

December 20, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Bill O’Reilly was recently offended by some dialogue appearing on the Dec. 9 episode of Law & order: SVU. John Larroquette, guesting as an immigrant-rights advocate, says:

“…Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, all of them. They’re like a cancer spreading ignorance and hate. I mean, they have convinced folks that immigrants are the problem, not corporations that fail to pay a living wage or a broken health care system.”

More on his comments below, but of course O’Reilly denied that he has done any such thing. His ire at the ”defamatory and outrageous” comments was entirely directed at the show’s producer, Dick Wolf, whom he labeled “a liar” and a “coward” and “a despicable human being for distorting and exploiting this very complicated situation.”

Bill O’Reilly: Dry snitchin’ motherfucker

A Weird Conflation

Putting the content of the Larroquette’s statement aside, the really weird thing about O’Reilly’s response is his readiness to equate a fictional character’s position with that of the show’s producer. (Note that by show business rules, Wolf’s “producing” the show need mean nothing more than that he owns it. It doesn’t mean he wrote it or even reviewed the script.) There isn’t any warrant for this. For one, its impossible to make this equation consistently, as different characters on the show adopt different, mutually incompatible positions; they can’t all be speaking for Wolf.

Indeed, Larroquette’s own comments are met with instant disapproval by another character, Det. Tutuola (played by Ice-T), who snaps at him to ”Save the soap box… the cameras are not even running.” Plus, Tutuola is a major, reoccuring character—a sympathetic hero, arguably—versus Larroquette’s one-off. If L&A is a vehicle for Wolf’s views, this function would almost certainly be exercised through the regular lineup.

If his characters are simply mouthing the producer’s own views, Wolf is guilty of far more than mis-paraphrasing a talk show host. For there is probably no vile nor illegal position that has not been voiced on the L&A franchise in the last two decades, as it is a fucking cop show profiling miscreants and wrongdoers of all stripes. Let us neither forget O’Reilly himself has penned a book full of characters more unsavory than savory, including a serial killer. Should we take his depictions of murder and corporate skullduggery in “Those Who Trespass” to mean he advocates these things? And if not, why assume it of Wolf?

Finally, there is nothing in Wolf’s depiction of Larroquette’s character than cannot be explained in terms of simple realism. Fairly or not, the view that O’Reilly “spreads ignorance and hate’” toward the immigrant community is both “out there” and moreover very widespread among immigration-rights activists such as Larroquette portrays. If this view is a misunderstanding, even a ”lie,” be assured it is one shared across the demographic. Surely O’Reilly does not suggest that fiction be populated only by good characters with sound views.

Unpacking O’Reilly’s Defense

O’Reilly’s main defense is that he has always distinguished between the actions of the immigrants themselves and those of the federal government who makes immigration policy, condemning the latter but not the former: “I have consistently defended poor people who only want a better life. If you watch ‘The Factor’ you know my beef is with the federal government not controlling illegal immigration and with violent aliens who wreak havoc once they get here.” O’Reilly illustrated the point with a montage of clips, including those where he declares he would immigrate illegally to the U.S. if he were a “poor Mexican.”

For the record, I have no reason to doubt that O’Reilly has sympathetic feelings toward illegal immigrants in general. What is less clear is how this actually addresses Larroquette’s comments. For it is certainly possible to ‘’spread ignorance and hate” without being oneself being ignorant and hateful.

Consider an analogy: A common criticism of Affirmative Action from the right is that it breeds resent—and “hate”—toward its minority and female beneficiaries in the white men who feel unfairly disadvantaged by it. Whether or not you think this is true (I don’t, nor would I care if it were), it is clear that those who make this criticism are not alleging that supporters of AA ”hate” the people of color whom they intend to benefit from it. (Much the opposite, I’m sure.) If AA breeds ”hate” of blacks, it isn’t because its proponents hate blacks. Rather, it is an inadvertent, unintentional effect which operates despite the personal feelings of its proponents.

To repeat, the point is not that right-wing critics of AA are correct, but to illustrate the distinction between the feelings and intentions behind a statement or a position, and the effects of that statement.

* * *

So far, this only shows that O’Reilly’s defense has no teeth. It doesn’t show that some other defense wouldn’t work. That is, it doesn’t show that he is actually guilty of spreading ignorance and hate”—only that his feeling kind toward immigrants doesn’t make it impossible that he could be.

So is O’Reilly responsible for hatred toward immigrants? I’m sure he is—at least, his views are. However, I’m not going to take the space to argue that here. But I want to suggest a way this could work, which doesn’t depend on him having negative feelings toward this group:

Consider O’Reilly’s point that he doesn’t blame immigrants, but rather the U.S. government for not doing enough to block them. First, from a moral standpoint, this is a bogus distinction. It is like saying we don’t have a problem with people owning pets, only with the government for failing to outlaw pet ownership. Clearly, the criticism of the government here implies that the immigrants are doing something wrong. To the extent that O’Reilly says they aren’t, he simply sends a mixed message; the opposite message doesn’t cease to be sent.

It’s a very short step from recognizing that immigrants are wrong for immigrating, to blaming them for all the negative effects of illegal immigration which O’Reilly harps upon night after night. And if I can blame them for “taking my job,” or “raising my taxes,” etc., I can certainly resent, possibly even “hate,” them for this as well.

Whether this progression from O’Reilly’s criticism of the government to “hate” actually takes place is an empirical psycho-sociological point I can’t begin to prove here. The point is that O’Reilly’s personal “feelings” toward immigrants gives us no reason to think it couldn’t.

O’Reillian Moderation is a Mile Wide and an Inch Deep

O’Reilly is fond of saying he’s not a member of the right, even going so far as to claim he’s “not a political guy” at all. Part of why I write this is to show the kind of technique he uses to ‘get away with’ this kind of claim. O’Reilly’s overt sympathies toward poor illegal immigrants seem very un-conservative, and maybe in themselves they are. But they don’t do any real work within his arguments; they don’t mitigate his very conservative conclusions about what immigrants actually do. They coexist with arguments that, I have tried to show, probably “spread…hate” toward this group, or certainly lend themselves to this outcome for anyone willing to follow it through to consistency. In this sense his “nice feelings” are merely trappings, an afterthought serving to soften the swallow.

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North Korea shifty on nukes? Don’t believe the hype

May 29, 2009 · 1 Comment

[An old piece from '07 to provide some historical context for NK's current "sabre rattling." I'd like to update this sometime.]

The latest reporting on North Korean arms talks repeats the idea that recent successes represent a kind of tentative “breakthrough” with a recalcitrant negotiator, all the more so due to the “shiftiness” of this opponent. For example, CNN: “Few people believe that North Korea will fulfill all of its promises. After all, Pyongyang has sidestepped previous agreements.”This is quite far from the truth. Not only would a reasonable agreement have been struck long ago had the US negotiated for such in earnest, but North Korea (NK) has proved quite true to its word, and indeed in the face of consistent US diffidence and aggression.

I wrote the following timeline awhile ago to demonstrate the US role in the failure of US-NK relations and in the (alleged) nuclear rearmament by NK. I wanted to debunk the claim that NK “broke a promise” to halt nuclear armament and that as a result, future negotiations over nuclear arms would be pointless, as they could produce at best highly unreliable agreements.

Recall that the “Agreed Framework” (AF) of 1994 brokered by Clinton basically called for cessation of the NK nuclear programme—along with its membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and admission of IAEA nuclear facility inspectors. In return, the US would build two non-weaponizable light-water nuclear reactors to provide energy for NK and would supply heating oil (500,000 tons per year on a scheduled dispensation) until their completion. Perhaps most importantly, the AF called for both sides to “move toward full normalization of political and economic relations,” including reduction of trade and investment barriers and a formal assurance by the US ruling out threat or use of nuclear weapons against NK.

(Background point: Consider the circumstances under which NK adopted the AF before you accuse them of being quick to break “their” agreements. At the beginning of the year (1994), the US announced deployment of Patriot missles to Scout Korea (SK) and continuance of its nuclear war games there, called “Team Spirit”–both aimed at NK. In all, 48 launching ramps and 192 warheads were sent to SK. This would have effect of “softening up” NK for imposition of the AF. The nuclear “crisis” that more immediately precipitated the AF talks led Clinton to dispatch stealth warplanes to NK, knowing that war might result from this decision. He was turned back from this path by a sobering calculation by the Pentagon: General Luck, US Commander in SK, estimated that resumption of full-scale war on the peninsula would cost 80-100,00 deaths; $100 billion cost to US; $1,000 billion in damages to countries involved and their neighbors. None of these considerations were lost on NK–making it hard to say that they properly “Agreed” to the Framework in the first place, that it was in fact “their” treaty to break even if they went against what it demanded. (But again, as I’ll show, NK did what the AF asked of it–coerced or not.))

There are two basic phases to the (latest) breakdown of US-NK relations:

First, the US under Clinton violated the AF in two major areas:

(1) The US waited until 1999 to lift the economic blockade against NK. This was a full five years since the AF and the clauses demanding mutual ‘normalization’ of relations.

(2) The US delivered the promised fuel only intermittently, dropping deliveries especially during the harsh NK winters. Also, the US seriously slow-walked construction of the two promised reactors.  As David Kang of the Financial Times wrote in 2003, “the first of these [reactors] were due to come into operation this year but it was clear in 1998 that it could be at least three years behind schedule because of US reservations and hesitancy,” and the progress is described as “barely begun.” (The South Koreans locally administering the project specified its defunding by the US.)

The second phase amounts to a campaign of outright aggression—including nuclear aggression—waged by the Bush administration against NK. Consider:

(1) After his first election, Bush immediately cut off diplomatic relations with NK per the negotiations begun under Clinton.

(2) After a “policy review,” Bush racheted up demands upon NK beyond that called for by the Agreed Framework (e.g., NK could now have no ballistic missles and had to cut conventional forces–both exceeding the dictates of the AF.)

(3) In Jan., 2000, he famously placed NK on the “axis of evil,” ultimately invading one of the other members.

(4) The US suspended its already limited food aid to NK.

(5) In Mar., 2002, leaked portions of the Pentagon’s “Nuclear Posture Review” showed the US is prepared to use nuclear weapons against NK, in violation of the Agreed Framework (and the 1992 Nuclear-Free Declaration which it reaffirmed).

**Note that at this point there is no indication, nor even a US allegation, that NK is pursuing nuclear rearmament.**

(6) In Oct., 2002, the US alleged that NK admitted to pursuing uranium enrichment during talks. (NK, along with US observers at the talks in question, deny this.) The US claimed that this violates the Agreed Framework, though uranium enrichment is not covered by the AF.

(7) In “response” to this ficticious infraction, the US cut off fuel oil supplies altogether and coerced Japan and other Asian neighbors to do likewise, at the start of the chilly North Korean winter.

**Only at this point does NK begin to speak of the “nullification of the Agreed Framework.”**

(8) On Dec.29, 2002, the New York Times reported on the new US “tailored containment” plan designed to drain NK economically and isolate them politically, ultimately to facilitate regime change. This included a plan to intercept NK missile sales to other states–not for security, but to deny NK much-needed hard currency.

(9) On Dec. 23, 2003, Rumsfeld reassured the press corps that US military is “perfectly capable” of waging war against NK and Iraq at the same time. (Colin Powell affirmed this veiled threat elsewhere, if only a bit more ‘veiled-ly’.) Bush alluded to a possible “nuclear strike” against the reactors.

(10) Jan. 2003:  In response, NK announced withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, freeing it to resume work on two nuclear reactors. (This is not a case of NK’s “breaking” an agreement: Withdrawal is permitted by the rules of the treaty with one month’s notice.) On Jan. 10, NK’s UN ambassador Pak Gil Yon denied NK is producing nuclear weapons–only “civilian” energy such as the undelivered light-water reactors were intended–but is keeping the option open as a matter of sovereign right to defense.

(11) At this time, US Asst. Secretary of State James Kelly toured South Korea and China to petition for tightening of economic sanctions against NK, in accord with “tailored containment.”

(12) In Feb., 2003, Gen. Richard Meyers, US Joint Chief of Staff, told NBC that NK is a target for “nuclear preemptive strike” by the US. South Korean investigative reporter Lee Si-Woo provided documentary evidence verifying that the US military had nuclear weapons in South Korea at the Jinhae naval base and had been practicing nuclear submarine attacks against NK (in violation of the 1992 Nuclear-Free Declaration and the 1994 Agreed Framework).

So to sum up the “Bush phase”: Bush halted the promised light water reactor program due to an allegation, unverified, that NK was pursuing nuclear technology which it was permitted under the relevant treaties to pursue. In response to a stepped-up program of US aggression toward them, NK (at long last) broke the seals on old nuclear technology and [claimed to have] weaponized it. At that point there were no treaties, and frankly no common-sense argument, to stand in the way of this move.

* * * * *

In conclusion, there is an important “deeper” story to all this that goes beyond the point I am trying to make here. I wrote this primarily to show the kind of “partner” the US is to those nations to which, like NK, it bears an imperialist relationship–to show how its behavior must look to these other nations and how this might prompt us to interpret the responsive behavior of these third parties.

I noted above that the US has not negotiated in earnest with NK–a mild way of putting the point. This “false face” is illustrated perfectly by Bush’s post-reelection appointment of Victor Cha as Asia Director for the National Security Council–and therefore chief architect of policy toward NK. Cha wrote a book outlining a nuclear negotiations strategy the US should adopt toward the regime. (You can get it at Amazon.com.) In it, he argues that the US should expect not to actually resolve anything at these talks. Instead, while maintaining the sincere appearance of desiring resolution, US negotiators should deliberately sabotage any successful outcome–but in such a way that NK appears (but is not actually) at fault. The stated aim is to portray NK as completely unreasonable in the eyes of its neighbors–to isolate it diplomatically and provide rationale for a unilateral strategy to be pursued by the US.

Cha openly states that the aim is the “coercion” and “punishment” of NK under the pretense of diplomatic “multilateralism.” This explains, first, why Bush was so adamant about  maintaining six-party regional nuclear talks with NK rather than the bilateral meetings every other country gets. (Recall his stupid, tautological defense of this policy in the Kerry debates–that bilateral talks should be avoided because “they would dismantle the multilateral talks” already begun: This is like protesting that one cannot get married because that would “dismantle my bachelor status” already in place; the statement is technically true but elucidates precisely nothing about the actual relative merits of bachelorhood versus married life. I mean, any change one makes “dismantles” a previous state of being–the trick is to say why that is a bad idea.) Second, that the sneaky, “coerci[ve]” intent demonstrated by the Cha appointment has held firm throughout the timeline described above should be clear to anyone paying attention.

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Expelled redux: Darwinism leads to atheism?

May 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

[Following up on previous posts here and here.]

Perhaps the most specious claim in Ben Stein’s creationism polemic Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is that Darwinism leads to atheism.

While certain atheists may claim inspiration from Darwinism, there is no reason to take their word for the accuracy of this connection.

In truth, evolution simply removes one argument for theism—the argument that speciation and variety in nature can only be explained by appeal to god. (Mono)theists got along without this argument for nearly the whole life of monotheism. Nor do all theists make use of it now. The moral philosopher Immanuel Kant, to whom contemporary Christians are arguably indebted for their ethics, denied the whole of such “natural theology.”

By analogy: The fact that ‘god didn’t cause speciation’ is like the fact that ‘my best friend didn’t cause the coffee stain in my carpet.’ My friend didn’t spill the coffee—nor did he murder Jimmy Hoffa, nor has he done the great majority of things which are done every day in the world. But this hardly means he doesn’t exist. When I offer an alternate explanation for the coffee stain—the cat did it, or I did it—it has no bearing on my belief in my friend’s existence; there can be spilled coffee with or without my friend. In this sense, there can be natural speciation with or without god.

My point is not just that replacing a ‘godly’ mechanism with a natural one leaves any other arguments for god untouched. It is that there really should be more arguments. If Darwin’s single omission invites atheism, the case for theism was pretty weak to begin with. Similarly, if my marriage is over simply because my wife forgets how to cook pasta, the argument for us staying together (i.e., her pasta skills) was poor anyhow.

→ Leave a CommentCategories: Intelligent Design · atheism · evolutionary biology · religion
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Octomom and welfare ideology

April 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Of course the Octomom coverage is overblown, but not just in the sense the media overblows things all the time. The interest in Suleman’s story has long ceased to share anything in common with the interest surrounding previous multiple births, say, those profiled in the TLC series John and Kate Plus 8. Most everything said about Suleman is sharply negative or accompanied by something negative.

I’ve tried to get a handle on what precisely this woman has done to garner such criticism. I am told she was wrong to take on more children than she could care for properly. Suleman elected to have eight embryos implanted while she already had six birth children. People seem especially upset that the six are “already on welfare.” However, if the issue is simply that these children will not be cared for, this is largely irrelevant. The six are cared for by way of welfare, and ostensibly so will the new eight—right? One can complain about the “taxpayer burden” or some such, but this is an entirely separate matter from the provision of the children.

Nadya Suleman: The poor man's Angelina Jolie

Nadya Suleman: Subject of much hype

(Of course, this only speaks to the financial side of “care.” There is also the fear that Suleman’s energies and “face time” will be stretched to the point of inevitable child neglect. But here the ideology of The Family is at work. Yes, money aside, one parent is hardly enough for fourteen kids. But neither are two parents enough for one child. That a child should have to bypass a rich world of human resources to fundamentally identify with at most two persons within it is simply pathological. Granted, the family unit is the richest reproductive structure available to most of us—one does what one can. But let us not measure Ms. Suleman against some alternative nuclear “ideal.”)

And what of that taxpayer burden? So we each have to pay $.000000000001 (or whatever) more a year for the Suleman family? Should anyone really give a shit? (A newsworthy shit?) It isn’t as though Suleman’s story is illustrative of some epidemic; her case is unique. Plus, in economic terms, simple population growth pays off for the general economy and the federal budget alike; in time, Suleman’s children will contribute more than enough to offset any meager welfare payments they consume now. Taxpayers will pay more up front for this, but there is no evidence they will pay out in any net sense over time. (Not that I would care much if they did.)

Digging deeper

Criticism of Suleman brings American welfare ideology into sharper relief.

It is clear her critics view the welfare burden as a kind of penalty: For her poor judgment, the taxpayers are “stuck with” a bill. But why is this bill seen as a penalty, rather than simple spending? By comparison, nobody views themselves as “penalized” for the “mistake” of eating out when the waiter brings the ticket.

More to the case, we don’t say that the “conventional” parent who does not take welfare is “penalized” with diaper, clothes, etc. bills for giving birth. We consider these expenditures like any other.

So what makes Suleman’s case (or, welfare) different? Some will argue that she, and not the taxpayers, made the choice to procreate, therefore the responsibility for care is hers. But this doesn’t work. Some parents have unplanned (“unchosen”) pregnancies; the critics I have in mind would oppose welfare even for them. And the fact that we don’t view the non-welfare parent above as “penalized” has nothing to do with whether she chose the pregnancy. (Maybe she did; maybe she didn’t.) So “choosing” isn’t really the issue here: “Not choosing” gets society off the hook, allegedly, but never birth parents.

Critics could respond that the “conventional” parents didn’t take adequate precautions against the possibility of pregnancy; in leaving themselves open to chance, they “chose” it, and the responsibility, indirectly. But again, this doesn’t work: If the parents didn’t take sufficient precautions, then neither did society. There is always more both could have done to have prevented unwanted pregnancy. Saying ‘it isn’t society’s job to do this’ just begs the question that “Who chose?” was supposed to answer in the first place.

That is: If the “choosing party” is always responsible for care; and if we accept the idea of indirect “choice” through prevention-failure—It follows that, at best, the parents and society have a joint responsibility for care.

* * *

The reigning welfare ideology says “be responsible for your own.” But there is no clear standard by which we can define a child as her parent’s “own” which does not also make her society’s “own” (to whatever degree). She is at once a member of both groups. On the face of it, there is no more warrant for viewing public assistance as “coercive” to taxpayers than to for viewing parents as coerced for being made to feed and transport their biological children. If another truth lies under that “face,” we’ll need a hell of a lot more argument from the “ideologists” to show it.

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Birth citizenship depresses immigrant wages!

April 15, 2009 · 1 Comment

Most anti-immigration arguments beg the question; rather than showing how immigration is a problem, their arguments assume this very conclusion from the start.

By analogy, I heard Rush Limbaugh on the radio arguing against “smart cars”—tiny, very fuel efficient vehicles. His point was that these fare poorly in wrecks with larger cars. The argument was supposed to show that smart cars are a problem; but all it really showed was that the discrepancy between smart cars and larger ones is a problem. Pointing to a discrepancy tell us nothing about how to resolve it; that is a separate issue entirely and must be argued for independently. Rush’s argument points as much to getting rid of large cars as getting rid of small ones. It is just as reasonable for smart car owners to cite the discrepancy in favor of making all cars smart.

The same logic is behind arguments to the tune of “immigrants depress our wages.” Yes, when you have “rational” wage discrepancies among groups—when the wages correspond to discrepancies in skill levels, for instance—there can be a drag on the wages of the more highly paid group. But again, pointing out the discrepancy doesn’t tell us in which direction to resolve it. For the discrepancy describes a mutually adverse relationship. Mexican immigrants could just as fairly argue that the ‘skilling’ of the higher paid workers has served to ghettoize them in the second, low-paid group. Indeed, this skilling accounts for the existence of a tiered wage system in the first place. There is nothing ‘in’ the discrepancy to tell us which is the right way out of it. To side against the immigrants because they are immigrants assumes the very thing the “depression” argument was supposed to prove.

No group of wage laborers in history has ever impugned, legislated or barricaded its way out of a bidding war. There is no reason to think American-born workers will be the first. Their best bet is to unite with Mexican, etc. immigrants and bid together against the wage-payers. That might raise the standard of immigrant living, but if we can stomach that…

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Followup on Darwinism and eugenics, Nazism

April 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Here I tried to show that Darwinism does not theoretically license any attempt to engineer humans to become more “fit,” e.g. eugenics, killing disabled people in the Holocaust, etc. I quoted where Darwin himself says the practice would violate morality.

I might have added: Darwin condemns it on practical grounds as well. In The Origin of Species, he writes:

“It is good thus to try in our imagination to give any form [i.e., adaptive feature] some advantage over another. Probably in no single instance should we know what to do, so as to succeed. It will convince us of our ignorance on the mutual relations of all organic beings; a conviction which is necessary, as it seems to be difficult to acquire.”

In other words, not only may we not “enhance” humanity through artificial (versus natural) selection, but it wouldn’t work if it we tried. We simply don’t know which adaptations will enhance fitness and which won’t. The situation is a bit game-theoretic: The complexity of an environment, which includes all of the other organisms, and all of the infinite ways it (and they) might change in the future, preclude a solid basis for “engineering.” This is precisely why the theory of evolution is not a predictive one. It locates a real causal mechanism for speciation, but it by no means follows that we can anticipate precisely how a species will change to come. Yet this is precisely what would be needed in order to “breed” humans for fitness. (We can sort of breed animals for fitness only to the extent they remain in a relatively artificially closed system of domesticity or captivity.)

Ben Stein, et.al.: Do we need any further evidence to prove that Darwinism does not contain the “seeds of horror”?

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Why god cannot be the ground of morals

April 10, 2009 · Leave a Comment

[I admit there is nothing new below. Kai Neilsen made the same basic moves before me. But I think the synopsis is helpful. Also, I refer to god as ‘he’ because I’m a dumbass and a flake and can’t think of an elegant, non-sexist rendering.]

tencommandmentsNope.

A common objection to atheism is that, by removing god, one removes the “grounds” for morality. Without a divine legislator, humans are free to do and think whatever they want. Below, I attempt to show not only that (a) god is not needed to ground morals, but (b) he cannot be a ground for them.

God and morals: The wrong kind of atheist response

Atheists have been quick to respond that they are, in fact, no less moral than anyone else. And while I am loathe to equate “imprisoned” with “immoral,” I expect many theists do, so it may be relevant that the prison population boasts about the same percentage of declared atheists as the broader population.

Chris Hitchens gives an interesting twist on this defense. In The Portable Atheist, he issues a challenge to believers: “Name me an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer.”

Hitchens’ point is that there is no logical reason why atheists could not behave just as theists. Assuming this is true, however, it probably doesn’t answer the theist’s main concerns: Supposing there is a divine legislator whose will provides the reason (and the only reason) for ethical behavior. Sure, atheists could make any statements and perform any actions they want all day long—just as theists could say and do unethical things, in spite of god’s commands. The point is that they could only do so inconsistently.[1]

The believer argues that, without a belief in god, there is no rational grounds for behaving morally; an atheist can do it, but he cannot justify it.[2]

Fleshing out the theist challenge

The heart of the theist’s worry is over arbitrariness in morals. Unless morals are imported from outside humanity, each human is left free to define the good for himself, or to dispose of moral categories altogether. To be able to say that some choices are wrong requires a collective “touchstone” or measure against which the choices can be evaluated. We can still argue about what is good or bad; but as C.S. Lewis pointed out, that we can argue at all presupposes there is some real standard, independent of the arguers, to be argued over.

But how does god solve this problem? For he is in precisely the same existential position as we, it seems. He has no “touchstone” outside himself. His choices are just as arbitrary. We would do no worse to elect one of our species to legislate—my uncle Ron, perhaps; his communications would be more direct, no doubt, and would avoid messy controversies about the legislator’s existence. If there are problems with “Lord Ron,” invoking god does not so much solve them as push them back one level.

Believers would respond—they would have to—that god is more than a useful place-holder, an expedient “tie-breaker” in moral disputes. He does not so much ‘pick’ the good as he (including his will) just is good. Only if we assume god is perfectly good—good completely and at all times—can we know that whatever actions he wills for us are good.

Two options for theists

Option 1: Morals by divine command

Still, how god’s will relates to the good is unclear. To paraphrase Plato’s Euthyphro dialogue: Is it good because god wills is, or does he will it because it is good?

On the one hand, we could simply define “good” as “whatever god wills.” Then we know for certain that god’s commands are good because “good” simply means “whatever god commands.” But this just thrusts us back upon the King Ron problem. It doesn’t solve the problem of arbitrariness in morals. God might have willed us to eat babies (he could change his mind and will this tomorrow) and it could not but be “good” to do so.

Some theists bite the bullet and accept this unattractive consequence—at least when asked. But it is unlikely they could ever embrace it in practice. Defining “good” as “what god wills” makes nonsense of much of what believers want to say about morality.

They can never, for example, speak of god’s having good (or any other) reasons for what he wills. It cannot be that in his wisdom god chooses this because it is good. This would imply he is referencing some standard of the good outside himself, which determines his choices—when we have already defined him as the sole standard.

Not to mention most theists (traditional Christians, for one) would be put off by the implication that an ‘almighty’ god should be “determined” or “limited” by some force outside himself in this way.

Likewise, every believer is taught that she always ought to do what god wills. (Certainly, the Bible demands this.) But this too becomes impossible. It invokes the same “outside standard” our definitions have forsworn. When “what we ought to do” and “what god wills” have the same meaning, the most one can say is “I ought to do what I ought to do,” or “god wills what god wills.” This bleeds our moral imperatives of substance, rendering them vacuously tautological.

Option 2: God as “substantially” but not logically good

Still, believers need to say that god’s commands are always good if they are to retain the idea that god is the ground of morals. They just need some non-tautological way of doing so. In short: We need to say that what god wills is always, necessarily good, but it is not good by definition. For lack of a better analogy, think of a dog which is not logically brown—dogs can be all kinds of colors, and this dog could have been another—but is still, in fact, always brown.

But this brings up a new epistemological quandary: How could we know god is perfectly good? There was no problem knowing he was good when we were simply defining him that way; we knew this in the same way we know unmarried males are always bachelors, or dogs (of whatever color) are always canines.

One could claim to know god is good because of direct acquaintance with him or his works. His goodness is known in the in the same way we know our a friend’s penchant for jokes or cooking style.[3]

But to know whether god is good requires a prior and independent understanding of the concept of goodness. We have to know what “good” means before we can look and see if god and his works exhibit this quality. His goodness is not just a cognition but a re-cognition.

This explodes the theist’s argument: If we can know what is good before knowing god, this knowledge cannot depend upon him. We cannot “get our morals from god” because we need the morals to know whether he is in any position to give them out.

Conclusion

While the “grounding” of morals is an interesting problem, it is a problem for both theists and atheists alike. Postulating divinity doesn’t get us closer to solving it. Even if there were a god, we would have to get a sense of right and wrong from a source outside him. Thus, the fact that we do possess a sense of right and wrong cannot be an argument for the existence of god.

Notes

[1] Hitchens’ approach exemplifies the problems I have with most of today’s “leading lights” (“brights”?) of atheism. They speak as though the only bad consequences theism could produce are observable: Religion fuels violence, divides people, slows progress on stem cell research, etc. This prejudice leads him to cast the ethical aspect of the debate as one of how we get people to do right stuff.

[2] The theists have a point: Living an authentically moral life requires more than the right behaviors. It requires having the right reasons behind them. Having good reasons is what makes moral actions moral in the first place: If I trip and accidentally cushion a baby’s fall from a balcony, I am hardly to be praised for his rescue. Indeed, I could have been on my way to throw a different baby off a different balcony; maybe I only tripped because I was wearing socks to better sneak into the apartment. Even if I meant to save the baby, but only in a crass bid for media exposure, it ceases to be a moral act. If, however, I place myself in the baby’s way deliberately, I’m a hero, and deserve all the praise I get. The behavior is the same; only the reasons distinguish them.

[3] There are other problems with knowing god’s goodness that exceed the scope of this piece. Note, god is not just good but perfectly good. It is unclear how one could be “acquainted” with any “perfect” quality. Maybe we can know god has been good up to now, but “perfect goodness” projects this quality of goodness into an infinite future—while our data is ever limited to the past and present. But this for another post.

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All wrong: A review of Ben Stein’s Expelled: Part II

April 5, 2009 · 1 Comment

Is the Academy enforcing thought control against Intelligent Design?

Part I of my review covered Expelled’s specious attempt to link Darwinism to nasty “social engineering” projects like eugenics and the Holocaust. Here, I discuss the film’s second major theme: Alleged “thought persecution” of pro-Intelligent Design professors by the academic establishment.

ben-stein-fake-ass-rebelBen Stein: Fake-ass rebel

Negative “freedom”: A bogus virtue

A valorization of ‘negative freedom’—defined as the absence of external constraint—frames the whole film. Stein begins his narrative, “Freedom is what makes this country great….But imagine if these freedoms were taken away.” Well, he doesn’t have to imagine: American professors, he argues, are being punished for sympathizing with Intelligent Design (ID) theory.

The “taken away” line, consequently, is accompanied by a montage of young black Civil Rights marchers brutalized by police dogs and hoses. Stein must intend that the “freedom” fought for by these marchers is the same object now being denied his academics.

This seems a stretch precisely because it is. In truth, there is no generic “freedom” to guide us in morals or social policy. There are only specific freedoms to do specific things. And just as our commitment to “food” doesn’t commit us to favoring every nutritive substance on earth with equal vigor, it is possible to embrace “freedom” without being equally committed to, or worried over, every freedom to do every thing. (Indeed, as every freedom is mutually incompatible with some others, we can’t be equally committed to all.)

If by “we should secure freedom,” Stein really means, “we should secure freedom to teach Creationism in the classroom,” fair enough—and make the case on the merits of the thing. But let us not pretend that a commitment to “freedom” automatically spells a commitment to this freedom.

Academic freedom, no less

Stein is shocked that “scientists” should be less than “free to ask any question, to pursue any line of inquiry without fear of reprisal.” But a strict absence of constraint in the classroom has never existed, much less “made America great.” Nor should it exist. (Nor is Stein really, in his heart of hearts, agitating for any such thing.) It would amount to nothing less than the abandonment of curricular standards.[1]

“Persecuted” professors?

Stein’s general approach

Regardless, Stein’s examples of ID sympathizers persecuted by the academy are so exceedingly weak that we can assume, if this is the best he has, the issue is effectively nonexistent.

Stein’s entire case rests on the testimony of five science professionals profiled in the first fifteen minutes of the film. I dare anyone to watch to that point, parse the narration carefully, and tell me precisely where Stein demonstrates how, in his words, “ID is being repressed in a systematic and ruthless fashion” by the academic establishment.

To establish the victim-hood of his subjects, Stein employs the following suspect tactics:

(1) “Suggesting” causal connections without evidence: Stein describes how a subject (A) made public a commitment to ID, and then (B) suffered some loss of position. “A happened; later, B happened.” Of course, this gives the impression that the two events are actually connected in some way; but if you watch carefully, you’ll see Stein never makes the case. He doesn’t even try.

(2) Overlooking possible causes other than ID loyalties: Often Stein’s “victims” violated some university or professional policies which could just as likely explain their “discriminatory” treatment.

(3) Confusing “fired” with “expired”: In three cases, the so-called “expulsion” of Stein’s subjects coincide with the predetermined end of their contract period.

The charges which don’t fall under these categories are “offenses” which, even if true, are simply not serious. Nor is there evidence they had anything to do with the victims’ ID commitments.

Finally, all of the accounts are purely anecdotal; nothing any “victim” claims is corroborated by other first-hand accounts. (Indeed, where others involved give their versions, they always contradict, and outnumber, Stein’s subjects.)

Stein’s profiled “victims”: A case-by-case analysis

(a) Richard Sternberg

This appears to be Stein’s “flagship” case. According to Expelled, Dr. Richard Sternberg, while managing editor of a biology journal, decided to publish a colleague’s paper “suggest[ing] intelligent design might be able to explain how life began.” At the time, Sternberg also held an “office” at the Smithsonian.

The paper, Stein recounts, “ignited a firestorm of controversy…[Sternberg’s] political and religious beliefs were investigated and he was pressured to resign.” Sternberg adds that the department chair (and other unspecified “people”) said bad things about his decision. But at this point, the worst we have is “pressure…to resign.” And Sternberg didn’t resign from anything. This hardly rates the imposing, red-inked “Expelled!” stamped across Sternberg’s face with a thud—a recurring graphic motif in the film.

So what did happen?

First, Sternberg could not have “resigned” his editorship on account of the article, as it appeared in the issue he’d already scheduled to be his last. In a subsequent issue, the journal’s publisher ran a retraction of the article. This was not for its ID-themed content, but because it violated their own (and standard) peer-review protocol: Sternberg claimed the paper had been reviewed by “four well-qualified biologists,” but refused to name them (and never has); he also failed to mention that he was one of them. The entire process was done behind the backs of the other editorial staff. This is all highly unorthodox and violates the practice and express rules of the journal.[2]

Neither could Sternberg have “resigned” from his job at the Smithsonian, because he didn’t have one. He was an unpaid researcher there under the rubric of another institution. He did, as he claims, “los[e] his office,” but this was not because of the paper, or ID, but because his set term as researcher was up. Right after, he was offered another research position at the same institution. Sternberg’s own email records document his supervisors’ opposition to any sanction of Sternberg for his ID sympathies.

This hardly describes the “exile” the professor claims to have suffered.

(Note too that the journal is a tiny regional paper with a circulation mostly internal to its publishing council. Whatever happened to its editor would hardly implicate “the academy.” )

(b) Caroline Crocker

Caroline Crocker was a biology professor at George Mason University. Stein begins, “After simply mentioning intelligent design in her cell biology class…her promising academic career came to an abrupt end.”

Note the correlation without causality: Crocker mentioned ID here; she lost her job there. But the link between the two events, if any, remains unshown.

Crocker’s “lost…job” amounts to the university’s failure to renew a contract that ended at a set time. This is not at all unusual—especially for part-time faculty, as was Crocker—and implies nothing particularly sinister. The university claims the decision had nothing to do with ID, and there is nothing but Crocker’s “feelings” to say otherwise.

(And Crocker did much more than “simply mention” ID. She taught the damn thing. But more on this below.)

(c) Michael Egnor

Stein narrates: “When neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor wrote an essay…saying doctors didn’t need to study evolution in order to practice medicine, the Darwinists were quick to try and exterminate this new threat.”

So what did this sinister effort look like? In Egnor’s own words, “A lot of people on a lot of blogs called me unprintable names.”

This is the entire charge. At most, some of these bloggers encouraged their readers to call the university and ask for Egnor’s resignation. (We are not told whether any of them ever did.) But Egnor wasn’t fired or driven out from anywhere. His name-callers weren’t associated with any university or professional administration. For this, Egnor is the most dubious recipient of Stein’s thunderous “Expelled!” stamp across the forehead.

(d) Robert J. Marks II

Dr. Marks, an engineering professor at Baylor University, erected a website on the university server to solicit grant moneys for private research. The site explored ID theories. Marks’s entire complaint in Expelled is that the university asked him to add a disclaimer—the same type that introduces every infomercial—clarifying that Marks’ personal views may not represent those of the university. This reflects university policy, which, if anything, appears to have been bent in Marks’ favor to let him keep the site. Instead, Marks chose to export it to another server, where it remains.

Again, this is the entire complaint. Marks is still at Baylor university and continues to receive a river of grant monies totaling in the millions. (And again with the “Expelled!” logo. Jesus. A disclaimer on a website is “Expelled”??)

(e) Guillermo Gonzalez

Finally, Stein profiles astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez of Iowa State University. After publishing the ID-sympathetic book, “The Privileged Planet,” Gonzalez’s petition for tenure was turned down.

Once more, we are presented with two events but no evidence—no attempt, even—to show how they might be connected. Gonzalez himself can only speculate: “I have little doubt that I would have tenure now if I hadn’t done any professional work on intelligent design.” (Well.)

The Chronicle of Higher Education notes Gonzalez, by the time of his tenure denial, “had no major grants during his seven years at ISU, had published no significant research during that time and had only one graduate student finish a dissertation.” A Physics Dept. colleague of Gonzalez reported his work leading up to the denial conspicuously lacked any math, measurements, or tests.[3]

Conclusion

Expelled was Stein’s big chance to slam the intellectual establishment. With two years and a ton of resources (in his words, it is “possibly the most expensive documentary for its length ever made”), he produces this anecdotal piece of shit. It is as if the Klan produced a documentary to prove once and for all the validity of white supremacy and all they present is a couple people saying black guys cut them off in traffic. I’d love to hear from people who find this convincing. I just don’t get it. Ben Stein has always sucked, but he’s better than this.

Two concluding points:

(1) Again, nobody in the documentary was fired, or otherwise sanctioned, for teaching ID. But what would be wrong if they were? As noted, “academic freedom” per se is simply crazy, and even the people who invoke the value don’t believe it in a strict sense. Stein himself gives the caveat that we wouldn’t want teachers to push Holocaust denial or flat-earthism in the classroom. So he must want limits to this “freedom.” But he never specifies what they should look like.

So why couldn’t ID in principle be relevant to one’s claim to lead a classroom or edit a journal? If the theory is plainly, grossly wrongheaded—crudely put, if it’s a damned stupid thing to believe—why should its endorsement not be a sign of scientific incompetence? I mean, fine, argue that it isn’t stupid; but stop acting as though nothing a professor believes could be ever relevant to his tenure.

On the other hand, ID could be a serious liability to scientific performance. It is classic god-of-the-gaps. And if you stop at the next gap, the next unknown phenomenon, and just assume it is designed, you stop looking for a genuine explanation. And the whole history of science—even the science the ID folks accept—is nothing if not the history of naturalistically filling gaps which looked at first to be designed.

(2) The most annoying part of the project is its faux rebellious air. Stein snarkily reports that his subjects “questioned the powers that be” and are now paying the price for it. This is accompanied by montages of the old Soviet Union building walls and showing force against “dissidents.” Of course the academy is supposed to be the brutish, conservative Regime and Stein and the ID guys are the lone rebels. This imagery is part of Stein’s cloying effort to hippen or “MTV”-up the film.

But rebellion in itself is nothing to celebrate. The NAMBLA pederasts’ website is full of challenges to a rigid orthodoxy. Every purveyor of every vile or idiotic thing is almost by definition a convention-flouter. You don’t get to be a cool rebel just because you believe crazy shit.

* * *

Notes

[1] By “scientists,” Stein refers to academics who are also scientists. Granted, the (alleged) persecutions are not strictly for things said, as I wrote, “in the classroom.” Some teachers have been targeted (again, allegedly) for things they wrote in academic journals. But my comments stand: Not only is it unreasonable to expect total freedom in the classroom, it is unreasonable to expect that you can exercise total freedom in your published work and it not affect your claim to a classroom. I’m sure Stein has no objection to teachers’ receiving jobs, or tenure, on the basis of published works. Everyone sees these as factors relevant to one’s teaching status. This is why every published professor with a website lists a C.V. But this relevance works in two directions.

[2] Nor was Sternberg, among those associated with the journal, nearly the most qualified to review the article. The article covered Cambrian-era invertebrates, on which many of the publishing Council are experts. (Sternberg is a taxonomist with no paleontological background.)

The article grew out of a meeting between Sternberg and the author (Stephen C. Meyer)—not the other way around. There is some reason to think they planned it as a “lame duck” parting shot which they knew would never fly under normal circumstances, and which Sternberg would likely be sanctioned if he weren’t already leaving. Meyer offered no new scholarship that would normally occasion publication, but cobbled together parts of papers he’d already published.

[3] The film also mentions “petitions” circulated by an “Avalos,” hinting that it sealed Gonzalez’ fate. Hector Avalos is a professor of Religious Studies at ISU. He co-wrote a general statement (not a “petition” for anything) against ID explanations which was signed by 130 other faculty. It wasn’t a policy document, nor did it result in any policy change. It predated Gonzalez’s tenure bid by two years. Nor did it name Gonzalez or any specific person.

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All wrong: A thematic review of Ben Stein’s “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” part I

March 29, 2009 · 4 Comments

Part I: Darwin and the science of “social engineering”

This documentary film bears two central themes: First, as the title suggests, it charges that American professors are being punished for sympathizing openly with Intelligent Design theory (ID), a spruced up version of Creationism. Second, it wants to place some blame upon Darwinism for inspiring ugly historical movements like eugenics and the Holocaust. This critique is likewise placed within the context of an extended pro-ID argument.

This part of my review deals with the second theme.

ben-stein-airy-suggestibilistBen Stein: Airy suggestibilist

Wrong from the start: Stein’s fatal error

Eugenics is the effort to “fitten up” the human species by breeding the strongest members, while sterilizing or otherwise preventing reproduction by those deemed weaker. The Holocaust, of course, aimed at the same effect by killing off the weaker ones directly. (I refer to these efforts collectively as “social engineering.”)

Stein not at all specific as to why these sins should be laid at Darwin’s door—but more on that later. For now, one obvious problem with any attempt by ID advocates to blame Darwinism for “social engineering” is that the part of Darwinism that (allegedly) licenses these acts is the very part which ID theorists themselves accept.

Proponents of ID, including those interviewed by Stein (e.g. William Dembski), are fond of saying that Darwin’s mistake was misapplication. He started with a sound idea—natural selection—but simply tried to explain too much with it. All ID theorists accept that natural selection explains “microevolution,” or changes within the same species over time. But they deny that it explains the differences between species; that is, they disagree with “macroevolution” whereby one species evolves into a completely different one. It is at this line of speciation that ID folks part ways with Darwin.

Fair enough, let’s assume. But it is not any particular application of natural selection that inspires the “social engineers”—but rather, natural selection plain and simple. If Darwin’s theory, as Expelled contends, contains the “seeds of horror,” then so does the very ID theory the film endorses. I see this inconsistency as nothing less than fatal for the entire project.[1]

What precisely is the claim here?

But let us dig deeper.

Again, Stein never bothers to say just how Darwin is supposed to be connected to Nazism and eugenics. The film throws up a lot of insinuations and “feelings” on the matter, none of which are really explored.

For a few of the documentary’s claims:

* The eugenicists and Nazi architects were “inspired” by natural selection. But so what? Sometimes inspiration is “taken” rather than “given.” Thirty years ago, John Hinckley, Jr. was “inspired by” Jody Foster to shoot President Reagan. Foster was the inspiration, but her influence was completely passive, and completely excusable.

* Many leading Nazis, and almost all eugenicists, “were fanatical Darwinists.” Maybe, but they were mammals and Westerners and a lot of other things, too. Most all of them had noses,  I expect. Correlation is not causality.

* “The Nazis relied on…Darwin.” This is more specific but fares no better. For they also “relied on” bacteriology and neurology. A ton of real science was involved in the torture of and experimentation upon the “unfit.” (Hell, they relied on mundane things like trucks, wool and tinned meats, too.)

Of course, what Stein really means to say is that the Nazis claimed to be relying on Darwin. As such,

* Mein Kampf cites a “correspondence between” Darwinist ideas and Nazi ideas. But even if some ugly movements claimed to be Darwinist, it doesn’t follow that Darwinism is to blame for them. It is not enough that someone claim to be inspired by a belief to perform some horrible act; in order to blame the theory, it must be shown that it has not been misinterpreted. It must be shown that the perpetrators were correct to draw the inference.

* Darwinism is “a necessary condition” for the rise of Nazism (though not a sufficient one). This is more specific yet. But just as correlation is not causality, causality is not culpability. Perfectly benign entities such as oxygen, gravity, the nation-state, British and American citizens, and Jews, are “necessary conditions” for Nazism as we knew it. Of course, that doesn’t make those things bad. Hitler’s grandmother could have been a lovely human being, but she was a “necessary condition” for Hitler(ism).

* * *

So nothing like an argument is to be found above. The film leaves it unclear what the “engineers” thought was Darwinist about what they were doing, and what was in fact Darwinist about it. (This is compounded by the fact that when actual “social engineers” speak for themselves, they aren’t much clearer.) But perhaps we can stitch something together.

Helping Stein along

The breeding of human beings was an attempt to make humans more “fit” by purifying the gene pool of disease, deformity, stupidity, and so forth, on the assumption, of course, that these traits have a genetic basis.

If you look for “Darwiny” elements in this, I suppose you can find them. You could say that selective breeding of any kind is a “mimicking” of the natural selective processes Darwin codified. And granted, Darwin drew an analogy between natural selection and animal husbandry, to help readers understand the former on the basis of something with which they were already familiar. I suppose with some leap of the imagination you could read into this an analogy between human natural selection and human “husbandry.” But to suggest—even openly—an analogy between human evolution and human “breeding” is hardly to suggest that humans be bred. It is just to say the two processes are alike in some respect.

Also, why would the “engineers” think they had to artificially produce mechanisms that are already working naturally? If they were true Darwinists, wouldn’t they predict the unfit would simply die out on their own? A strict Darwinism, it would seem, would obviate the need for “engineering” altogether.

Stein hints at an answer: The film rolls a clip from a Nazi propaganda film in which the narrator argues, “We [Germans] have transgressed the law of natural selection in the last decades” by permitting inferior members of the species (ostensibly Jews, the disabled, etc.) to survive and reproduce.

The suggestion is that in “the wild,” these inferior beings would die sooner and reproduce less, and thus not threaten the gene pool significantly. But modern culture has interfered with these “natural” self-correcting processes. Now we coddle and tolerate inferiors. Modern medicine—corrective surgery, wheelchairs—compensates for what nature has denied them. And liberal politics have removed the competitive pressure for resources by universalizing access to health care, education, suffrage, etc. This means we will cease to evolve (and possibly “devolve”) unless we act the role of nature and remove these genes ourselves.

“Social engineering” doesn’t follow from Darwinism

I guess this is the link Stein wants to draw. But there is nothing authentically Darwinist about this story. Here are the main problems I see with trying to hang “social engineering” on the theory of natural selection:

(1) Darwinism offers a description of a natural mechanism. Even if that description is false, and natural selection doesn’t exist, it is unclear how any description alone could license specific human behavior. The claim that natural selection operates upon organisms in no way implies that we should operate in “the same” way, or engineer things to bring about “the same” effects that it would. Likewise, the theory that cancer causes mortality does not license us to mimic this effect by killing cancer patients.

Darwinist “fitness” is not a moral category; it is not “good” or “right”—it just is. Getting from “disabled animals naturally die out, enhancing fitness” to “we should kill disabled people to enhance our fitness” requires a moral link that is not found within Darwinism itself, but which must be imposed from the outside.

(2) There is no such concept as “fitness” per se. An organism is fit only in relation to a specific environment. Someone that is fit in one environment might not be fit in another. So it makes no sense to say that “unfit” humans are being artificially kept alive in a modern environment; this can only mean that the modern environment—with wheelchairs, welfare, etc.—has now made them fit. Similarly, a person with 20/200 vision might be unfit in a hunter-gatherer tribal environment, but is no longer so in an environment with eyeglass technology. The new environment simply does not select these persons as unfit.[2]

Once more, anyone wishing to rectify our “transgression of natural selection” is not only wrong but reaching beyond the clear bounds of what is authentically Darwinist.

(3) Even if Darwinism did license killing “the unfit” among us, who says that the targets of the Holocaust and eugenics are “naturally” less fit than anyone else? The social engineers had crazy ideas about what constituted fitness. For example, eugenics was driven by unscientific, “Dickensian” ideas correlating poverty with genetic-based human weakness and moral degeneracy. Likewise, the Nazis had poor theories about “blood purity” which deemed the Jews as less fit than others.

These theories are just false. It is simply not the case that poverty stems from “weak genes,” nor that without modern, liberal German amenities, the Jews would die “naturally” before reproducing. Nor do these views have any part in Darwinism; they had to be grafted on from outside.

(4) Assuming the effects of natural selection could be mimicked artificially, this would endorse social engineering only on the insane assumption that everything which can be done ought to be.

Still, putting aside the moral question, it is unclear that “mimicking” natural selection is even possible. Who knows whether our idea of fitness is the same one “nature” would select for, were its modern constraints removed? Even if they match, it is unclear that the goal of fitness can be achieved in a non-counterproductive way.

For instance, as virtually every evolutionary biologist believes (and Darwin seems to), empathy and altruism are themselves evolutionary adaptations. They have a useful social function, on which the reproductive success of the group depends. Mimicking natural selection would require abandoning these behaviors, risking our becoming less fit in the longer term. Trying for group fitness is probably a contradiction in terms.

Conclusion

Any attempt to link Darwin to the horrors of social engineering has to overlook that he explicitly and unambiguously argued against the practice himself. In The Descent of Man, Darwin strenuously condemns this on purely moral grounds. (The quote, with emphasis, and the analysis which follows, comes from this article in Scientific American.)

Darwin writes:

“The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.”

As SA points out, Expelled shadily quotes the passage immediately preceding this one in Descent, alleging its support for social engineering. They ignore the one which contradicts that interpretation entirely—though Stein and the producers had to know of its existence.

[Please stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 of my review.]

Notes

[1] The most Expelled could contend is that both Darwin himself and the “social engineers” misapplied Darwin. Still, this lets Darwin off the hook for anything more than, again, the technical “paper error” of over-explanation. The moral error falls squarely on the heads of the social engineers.

[2] Behind the social engineering theory is an untenable (and un-Darwinian) nature-versus-culture dichotomy. The reason is makes no sense to say we blocked the action of “nature” is because “we” are as much a part of nature ourselves. Indeed, our action changes the environment, and thus the direction of selective pressures on ourselves, but this hardly makes it “unnatural.” All organisms do this very thing. We could change our behavior, and thus the direction of selection, but this wouldn’t be a return to behaving “naturally.” It would just be a different “natural” behavior than the old “natural” one.

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