The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, pt. 5

I continue a series of excerpts from The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith. The book, which is public domain, is, available on-line in its entirety here. This version is somewhat different from the paperback I have in my physical possession. (New York: Ballentine Books, 1986)

Here is part of Smith's chapter on "Difficulties Concerning Guidance:"

if there is any reserve of will upon any point, it becomes almost impossible to find out the mind of God in reference to that point; and therefore the first thing is to be sure that you really do purpose to obey the Lord in every respect. If however this is the case, and your soul only needs to know the will of God in order to consent to it, then you surely cannot doubt His willingness to make His will known, and to guide you in the right paths. There are many very clear promises in reference to this. Take, for instance, John 10:3, 4: "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when He putteth forth His own sheep He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice." Or, John 14:26: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Or, James 1:5, 6: "If any of you lack wisdom, let Him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." With such passages as these, and many more like them, we must believe that Divine guidance is promised to us, and our faith must confidently look for and expect it. This is essential; for in James 1:6, 7, we are told, "Let him ask in faith nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not such a man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

Our first test, therefore, of the Divine authority of any voice which may seem to speak to us, must be its harmony in moral character with the mind and will of God, as revealed to us in the Gospel of Christ. Whatever is contrary to this, cannot be Divine, because God cannot contradict Himself.

But it is essential in this connection to remember that the Bible is a book of principles, and not a book of disjointed aphorisms. Isolated texts may often be made to sanction things, to which the principles of Scripture are totally opposed.

The second test, therefore, to which our impressions must be brought, is that of our own higher judgment, or common-sense.

As far as I can see, the Scriptures everywhere make it an essential thing for the children of God to use all the faculties which have been given them, in their journey through this world.

The third and last test to which our impressions must be brought is that of providential circumstances. If a "leading" is of God, way will always open for it.

The fourth point I would make is this: that, just as our impressions must be tested, as I have shown, by the other three voices, so must these other voices be tested by our inward impressions; and if we feel a "stop in our minds" about anything, we must wait until that is removed before acting.

These four voices, then, will always be found to agree in any truly Divine leading, i.e., the voice of our impressions, the voice of Scripture, the voice of our own sanctified judgment, and the voice of providential circumstances; and where these four do not all agree at first, we must wait until they do.

How much global warming is due to human activity?

In a recent comment, I was asked how much global warming was due to human activity, as opposed to natural climate fluctuations, errors in measurement, and other phenomena beyond our control. (This Wikipedia article explains global warming well, with many links. It allows that there is, indeed, uncertainty over its cause.) My short answer, of course, is that I don't know, and I don't think anyone else knows for sure, either. However, it seems to me that if there is a case to be made for human acceleration of global warming, we don't need to know exactly how much we are doing, if what we are doing has bad effects. We don't know for sure if a particular smoker will die of lung cancer, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to stop smoking. We do know that some smokers do die of lung cancer.

Is there any such thing as global warming at all? There is, indeed, some controversy over this, but, like some other controversies, my impression is that there shouldn't be--some people are misinformed, or are deliberately producing misinformation, and encouraging others to disbelieve global warming. For whatever reason, those who disbelieve global warming tend to be conservative Christians or Republicans. (The two are not necessarily the same!) As an example, I saw Jerry Falwell on the CBS Early Show, on October 14th, 2005. He used the phrase ". . . the myth of global warming." (Harry Smith, the moderator, was doing a segment "Is God Mad at Us?" and Falwell was one of the guests. He said that God was not mad at us. Bill Nye, the Science Guy, another guest, said that he expected more hurricanes because of global warming.)

Back to the question. Is there really global warming? I believe so. (See the New Scientist report, updated occasionally, on Climate Change. See the Wikipedia article for data going back to 1860.)

And, again, to the question that started all this. Assuming there is global warming, how much of it is due to human activity? All I can say is that some of it is, and that, if we can do so, we should take action to cut back on such human activity, by, for example, cutting down on the emission of greenhouse gases in burning, by making transportation more efficient, and the like. I don't think we want to be responsible for the melting of the polar icecaps. This would change the environment radically, to say nothing of putting many of earth's large cities, which are located at or near sea level, in jeopardy. Apparently it would lead to more hurricanes.

Would there be effects on the economy? Yes, of course. A change, such as, say, giving up gasoline-powered automobiles entirely, would cause some change, and it is understandable that it would be resisted by people who would expect to be negatively affected by such changes. Radical changes in how we do things are never easy, and care should be taken to minimize the effects on people as much as possible. However, changes are not necessarily all bad. It is almost certain that new industries, and new jobs, would arise related to any changes in how we transport ourselves, heat our homes, etc.

The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, part 2

I am continuing a series on Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator. My comments, for the first few posts, anyway, will take the same order as Strobel's book. Much of that book is interviews with various persons who believe in Intelligent Design (ID).

Strobel's first interview is with Jonathan Wells (beginning p. 38). He consistently lists not just the interviewee, but his degrees (they are all male), which indicates that Strobel is on the defensive here. He is trying to establish the credibility of his witnesses by their credentials. Jonathan Wells is the author of Icons of Evolution, in which he claims that there are images, or icons, which have been shown to the public, including students, for a long time. Wells says they have been mis-represented, or oversold, as proofs of evolution. The four considered in Strobel's interview are:
1) The Miller-Urey experiment, in which a mixture of simple gases was electrified, resulting in some simple organic compounds, including amino acids, and sugars. Wells, and Strobel, argue that the mixture of gases used was not representative of conditions on the early earth, and that, even if such experiments could be made realistic, they would not show how self-replicating molecules (DNA) could have arisen.
2) Darwin's tree of life. Wells and Strobel argue that there was a Cambrian explosion, wherein many new types of organisms arose in a (geologically) short time, which argues against the tree of life idea.
3) Haeckel's embryos. Haeckel purported to show great similarity between the embryos of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, in sketches that have often been used in biology books, thus providing evidence for common descent. Wells and Strobel argue that the pictures that have been presented to the public were made so as to exaggerate the similarity.
4) Archaeopteryx, the missing link. Archaeopteryx was a fossil with characteristics of both birds and reptiles, including both teeth and feathers. Wells and Strobel argue that it was not a link between these two classes of vertebrates.

Wells has more to say in his own book, but my post is about Strobel's.

There are a number of reviewers who take pot-shots at Wells, or his book. To read some, just do a Google search on "Jonathan Wells Icons of Evolution." Most of the returns will be attacks (which doesn't, by itself, mean, of course, that Wells is wrong!). Paul Jacobsen, in "Another Case not Made," criticizes Strobel's entire book in considerable detail. A lot of his criticisms are about Wells, or Strobel's presentation of Wells.

Jacobsen concentrates on Archaeopteryx. He points out that, even though the public has often been told that Archaeopteryx was a missing link, it really wasn't, and sound paleontology doesn't claim that it was. I'm not a paleontologist, but I think that there is considerable justice in what Jacobsen says about this matter. Probably Wells has done a service, if he dispelled that notion, although I doubt Jacobsen would credit him for that.

Jacobsen also says that Wells misunderstands or misrepresents the significance of the Cambrian explosion. Jacobsen wrote that "many readers probably got the idea that the life forms that lived during the Cambrian Explosion were roughly the same as today--but nothing could be further from the truth." More seriously for Wells' position, Jacobsen says that "Wells argues against the idea that transitional life forms ever existed at all. This makes his bringing up the Cambrian Explosion all the more ironic. If the Cambrian Explosion was anything at all, it was a period of transitional life forms! Wells argues that there are no transitional life forms. Yet the Cambrian Explosion was nothing but transitional life forms!" (Emphasis in original) Jacobsen's view, as I understand the situation, is correct.

For more on the Miller-Urey experiment, see here. The web page referenced, which is from a biology professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, seems to be part of a class of that University. It agrees with Wells that the relevance of the Miller-Urey experiment, as originally performed, has declined, because, as Wells says, the Miller-Urey gas mixture probably wasn't the same as that of the early earth. However, The web page goes on to point out that the Miller-Urey experiment has been fruitful, in that it has led to further exploration of the possibility of synthesis of molecules needed for life from simple gases.

As to Haeckel's embryo sketches, they were, indeed, misleading, and, as an important naturalist (for more on this term, see here) critic of Wells admits, Wells is basically correct about the story (the link also shows drawings). This critic goes on to point out that exaggerations by Haeckel, or others, of the similarities between various types of embryos, doesn't prove that there are no such similarities, or that the various classes of vertebrates couldn't be related by descent.

My own comment on Haeckel's drawings is that I haven't seen them in introductory biology books for many years. (They may still be found in some such books -- I haven't seen them all.) That being the case, Wells' criticism is less important than Strobel and Wells seem to think.

My judgment is that, even though some of his claims seem overblown, Wells performed a useful service in pointing out that there have been exaggerations of various kinds in attempting to show that all organisms are related by descent. Unfortunately, those trying to push naturalistic theories of origins are not the only persons who have not been careful with the truth. It's too easy to rely on soundbites, and whether the subject is politics or science, they seldom give more than a caricature of the true picture.

Does a fetus feel pain?

My answer is, simply, "I don't know." I don't think anyone else does, either.

A recent article in the Journal of the American Medican Association (abstract here -- entire article not freely available) concludes the following:

Evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited but indicates that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester. Little or no evidence addresses the effectiveness of direct fetal anesthetic or analgesic techniques. Similarly, limited or no data exist on the safety of such techniques for pregnant women in the context of abortion. Anesthetic techniques currently used during fetal surgery are not directly applicable to abortion procedures.

The above is hardly a firm denial of fetal capacity to feel pain (nor, of course, does it show that fetuses do feel pain). However, the climate being what it is, considerable controversy has ensued. It seems that some of the investigators may have a vested interest in abortions. See Christianity Today for a report on the matter.

Pain, itself, is notoriously difficult to define. It is also difficult or impossible to understand how we personally experience anything, let alone how another being, human or animal, (see here for interesting article on thought in dogs) does. However, however pain is defined, I can't believe that zygotes or very early embryos can experience it, inasmuch as they presumably lack the ability to experience anything. Likewise, it certainly seems as if newborns can experience pain. Somewhere between fertilization and birth, I would guess that most fetuses develop the capacity to experience pain. At what point, I don't know.

The best on-line reference I have found, attempting to present several points of view, is here. It doesn't seem to be a response to the JAMA article. The question goes back before the 21st century!

Sunspots 26

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Wired has a blog on autos. (There is subscription information at the bottom of the page)

If you subscribe to RSS feeds, using Bloglines or a similar service, you might want to subscribe to the Blogger status report. This is especially true if you use Blogger to produce your blog.

The 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for olefin metathesis.

Best Fall Foliage and Autumn Color Web Cameras for 2005, from About.com. Some of the most interesting are Bushkill Falls, in PA, the Elk Cam in Winslow Hill, PA (both of which you can control, if someone else isn't), Old Forge, New York, Canyon's Restaurant in Blowing Rock, NC, Brasstown Bald South, GA, and Brasstown Bald North, also in Georgia. (For those who don't know, a Bald is, in this sense, a place without trees. Brasstown Bald is the highest point in Georgia.)

We saw the trailer for the new Narnia movie. Based on it, there will be lots of emphasis on the battle near the end of the book (Which C. S. Lewis didn't spend a lot of prose on). The poster in the theater had the White Witch's sleigh drawn by three white bears, not by reindeer.

Google Moon doesn't go all the way around that body, but it is impressive, showing quite a bit of the terrain, craters, and all, using NASA imagery. I have already referred to Google Earth, which I like a lot, in a previous Sunspots. Our house doesn't show up well at all, but my church does. I can't wait for Google Mars.

This is NOT an advertisement for Google. Check our bank account, if you don't believe me. However, I have been using the Google desktop for several days. I was hoping that it would replace Windows search, which I use to find files created every day or so, so as to copy them to a second computer, but it doesn't seem to easily find all the files in My Documents created today. I decided not to install the sidebar--I've got enough stuff on my desktop. What Google desktop does is to search for files on my computer containing whatever words I wish. This searching includes e-mail, including at least messages in the folders of Microsoft Outlook and Mozilla Thunderbird. Perhaps most importantly, your search finds files in both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox caches, so I can easily find web pages that I vaguely remember seeing, but can't remember where, or when, so long as they are still in the cache, and I can remember a word or two of them. It even shows thumbnails of these web pages!

For example, I just now used Google desktop to recover a post by Arevanye, quoting C. S. Lewis, who speculated about why Potiphar had Joseph thrown in prison, rather than having him executed.

RElliott is probably one of many who has posted some photos of hurricane damage and recovery.

Arthur Caplan has accused the Bush administration of trying to get the Supreme Court to "legislate from the bench," as related to the Oregon Assisted-Suicide law. Here's the closing paragraph:

The administration constantly bemoans the fact that Roe v. Wade [sic-should have italicized this] imposed a policy on the American people about abortion that was never legislated. Oregon has a policy on assisted suicide that was legislated — twice. Bush and his administration should be ashamed for trying to use the Supreme Court to do what they claim they do not want any federal judge or court to do. The ethical hypocrisy involved is beyond description.

About's Christianity: General editor has posted a list of the top 10 Christian magazines.

Benjamin Carson, African-American neurosurgeon, tells about the influence of his hard-working, God-fearing mother. Available in text form, or you can hear Carson, here. Part of National Public Radio's excellent "This I Believe" series.

The 1918 flu virus has been reconstructed, or resurrected, or something. Avian flu may become a killer. The 1918 virus killed more people than the Black Death. Some experts say that the recreated virus is almost certain to escape.

This week's Christian Carnival is here.

Anyone who prays, don't forget the vote on the Iraqi constitution on Saturday, October 15th. Do I know how it should go? No.

Thanks for reading.

Image source (public domain)

The Case for a Creator, by Lee Strobel, part 1

A student gave me a copy of Lee Strobel's The Case for a Creator (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004) upon her graduation from University. I was, and am, most grateful. I promised that I would read it, and I have. I am attempting to write a series of posts on the book, and related matters. (I am also attempting to keep a promise made to my readers, if any, here.)

The book is important. It is about an important subject. Amazon ranked the hardback book about 6,000 in sales, as of October 8, 2005. The hardback ranked about 8,000. Although, as you will see if you read, I've got some problems with the book, and with Intelligent Design, the book is, in my opinion, well worth reading. It covers more than just biological origins, and presents a lot of ideas.

Strobel wrote the book, he says, because his own background told him that belief in evolution was not compatible with belief in God as creator:

I've lost count of the number of spiritual skeptics who have told me that their seeds of doubt were planted in high school or college when they studied Darwinism. When I read in 2002 about an Eagle Scout being booted from his troop for refusing to pledge reverence to God, I wasn't surprised to find out he "had been an atheist since studying evolution in the ninth grade." Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004. p. 24.

Personally, however, I couldn't understand how the Darwinism I was taught left any meaningful role for God. I was told that the evolutionary process was by definition undirected -- and to me, that automatically ruled out a supernatural deity who was pulling the strings behind the scene. p. 25.

I have previously indicated, in a series of posts, that one reason for problems in this area is that both conservative Christians and advocates of naturalism do not define their terms carefully. I'm not supposing that my posts, or anybody else's, are going to change anything about this, which is too bad. Natural selection works, and there are similarities between living organisms. These facts about living things relate to evolution. Neither of them really have any bearing on whether or not there is a Creator. To read lots of stuff from "both sides," you'd think they did.

Much of Strobel's book is what you might expect from a journalist, which is his background. That is, he went out and interviewed several thinkers about origins, and reports on what he found.

Three introductory remarks on Strobel's book.
First, it is the Case for a Creator. He is arguing one side of an argument. Don't read this book expecting to get an independent, unbiased view. (Don't expect many books to do that. One that tries is Del Ratzsch's The Battle of beginnings : why neither side is winning the creation-evolution debate (Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1996))
Second, Strobel, nor any of the experts he has spoken to, and written about, are young-earth creationists. I found no statement in the entire book suggesting that these persons believe the earth is younger than several million, or billion, years. Strobel, and his experts, also seem to agree that there was a Big Bang.
Third, these persons, including Strobel, all believe in Intelligent Design (ID). So do I, depending on what you mean. To quote from my post of September 26, 2005: "Lest there be any doubt, I believe that there is an omnipotent God, and that He was directly involved in the origin of the universe, of living things, and of humans, and that at least some attributes of the way things are were designed by God. If that makes me an IDer, then I am one." I expect to make some remarks about how I think I may differ from mainstream IDers, and some of the weaknesses of the ID movement, before finishing this series, however long it may be.

The book is well indexed, and has lots of notes. Supernaturalists are often criticized for not using primary sources, or for quoting out of context. There's some of that from Strobel--he often has not used primary scientific literature very much--but I think the sheer volume of sources is a plus.

Strobel's book has been criticized at considerable length, usually negatively, by Paul Jacobsen, in his "Another Case Not Made." One of his criticisms that rings true is that Strobel presents his book as if he were a skeptic on these matters, listening carefully to more than one position, then drawing a conclusion. Jacobsen is correct--that's not what happened. Strobel didn't interview any young-earth creationists, or naturalists. He interviewed only IDers. He had already drawn his conclusion when he started writing the book.

Happy Birthday, grandson!

Today is our grandson's birthday. We weren't there for his birthday party, yesterday, at which the above picture was taken, but his mother was able to be, which is an answer to prayer. We thank God for our grandson's existence, and that we have gotten to see him as much as we have. He, like our children, has brought great joy, as well as a renewed sense of responsibility, to our lives.

Yahoo! advertisements is amazing, and hilarious. There was an ad for eating disorders for girls on the Flickr page for this picture as soon as I got there.

Our ISP is also amazing. We received an e-mail today, thanking us for using it for a year. It has mostly been a good year, except for a few problems with tech support. Like electricity, we need an ISP.

Thanks for reading, and "Happy Birthday!" grandson.

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, pt. 4

I continue a series on The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, by Hannah Whitall Smith. The previous post, October 2nd, is here. The first post in the series has links to sources.

Smith's chapter, "Difficulties Concerning the Will," includes this:

Now the truth is that this life is not to be lived in the emotions at all, but in the will, and therefore the varying states of emotion do not in the least disturb or affect the reality of the life, if only the will is kept steadfastly abiding in its centre, God's will.
To make this plain, I must enlarge a little. Fenelon says somewhere, that "pure religion resides in the will alone." By this he means that as the will is the governing power in the man's nature, if the will is set straight, all the rest of the nature must come into harmony. By the will I do not mean the wish of the man, nor even his purpose, but the choice, the deciding power, the king, to which all that is in the man must yield obedience. It is the man, in short, the "Ego," that which we feel to be ourselves.
It is sometimes thought that the emotions are the governing power in our nature. But, as a matter of practical experience, I think we all of us know that there is something within us, behind our emotions, and behind our wishes, -- an independent self, -- that after all decides everything and controls everything. Our emotions belong to us, and are suffered and enjoyed by us, but they are not ourselves; and if God is to take possession of us, it must be into this central will or personality that He shall enter. If, then, He is reigning there by the power of His Spirit, all the rest of our nature must come under His sway; and as the will is, so is the man.
The practical bearing of this truth upon the difficulty I am considering is very great. For the decisions of our will are often so directly opposed to the decisions of our emotions, that, if we are in the habit of considering our emotions as the test, we shall be very apt to feel like hypocrites in declaring those things to be real which our will alone has decided. But the moment we see that the will is king, we shall utterly disregard anything that clamors against it, and shall claim as real its decisions, let the emotions rebel as they may.

I am convinced that, throughout the Bible, the expressions concerning the "heart" do not mean the emotions, that which we now understand by the word "heart"; but they mean the will, the personality of the man, the man's own central self; and that the object of God's dealings with man is, that this "I" may be yielded up to Him, and this central life abandoned to His entire control. It is not the feelings of the man God wants, but the man himself.
But do not let us make a mistake here. I say we must "give up" our wills, but I do not mean we are to be left will-less. We are not so to give up our wills as to be left like limp nerveless creatures, without any will at all. We are simply to substitute for our foolish, misdirected wills of ignorance and immaturity the higher, divine, mature will of God. If we lay the emphasis on the word "our," we shall understand it better. The will we are to give up is our will, as it is misdirected, and so parted off from God's will; for when our will is in harmony with His will, when it has the stamp of oneness with Him, it would be wrong for us to give it up.

Biodiesel

By e-mail, I was asked what I think of biodiesel as a fuel source. I appreciated the comment, as I had never really thought of, perhaps never even heard of, biodiesel. Here's the Wikipedia article on the subject. (Biodiesel also has a trade association.) The article says that biodiesel is, unlike petroleum or coal, a renewable fuel. It also says that it is less combustible than petroleum diesel, therefore being safer in accidents, and that it puts less pollutants into the atmosphere. Biodiesel, it says, is derived from animal fats or vegetable oils. There are downsides. Growing enough plants (sunflowers? peanuts?) to produce a serious amount of biodiesel would probably require a significant increase in agriculture, which itself, especially in its modern highly mechanized form, is not very environmentally friendly. Currently, biodiesel is more expensive to obtain than petroleum diesel, but, if used a lot, the price would probably come down.

My previous post that triggered the e-mail that triggered this post was on Hydrogen fuel cells. Wired reports that stocks of companies working in that area have been declining in value recently, and that we are a long way from the Hydrogen economy.

This site says that you can make your own biodiesel in your kitchen. My mention here is NOT an endorsement of these procedures, and I have no plans to do this myself.

Willie Nelson (yes, the Willie Nelson) is pushing, and, apparently, selling biodiesel fuel.

The military is using biodiesel.

Eddy Curry's DNA

DNA and basketball. What a combination!

Eddy Curry was drafted out of high school by the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association. He didn't do very much until last year. Then, when he was finally making a difference, he had to stay out of the last few games, including the playoffs, because of an irregular heartbeat. (Reggie Lewis, who was at the time the star player for the Boston Celtics, died of a similar, or identical ailment, several years ago. Some might say that the Celtics haven't recovered yet.)

The Bulls have traded him to the New York Knicks, but the Knicks, understandably, are concerned about his health problems, and want to administer a DNA test. Curry, as I understand it, isn't letting them do it, on the grounds that his DNA is his, and this would be an invasion of privacy. He is also apparently concerned that a DNA test might discover other potential problems, which might either prevent the Knicks from hiring him, or make it difficult or impossible to obtain health insurance.

This is a big question. Should an employer have a right to test someone for a possible future health problem before hiring? Should insurance companies have the right to test persons, and then refuse them coverage for ailments they discover in such tests? Should insurance companies have access to DNA tests conducted for other purposes? In case you didn't know it, you read it here first: health insurance companies don't want to cover anyone who is going to get sick, in spite of the fact that that's why people get health insurance--to help them if they do get sick. HR 1227 attempts to deal with this problem by protecting individuals from prying insurance companies. Previous bills of this nature have not passed, in spite of supposedly wide support (this one has 126 co-sponsors). I'm guessing that insurance interests have lobbied heavily against this bill.

In the remote chance that anyone cares about my other posts on basketball, you can find them here. Thanks for reading.

Ursula K. Le Guin: Language of the Night

Susan Wood did a great service to literature by editing a compilation of miscellaneous writing by Ursula K. Le Guin. Her compilation is The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1979). It includes roughly two dozen speeches, introductions to books, and essays. The book doesn't appear to be in print, but used copies are available from standard sources, at reasonable prices. See here, here and here for some previous posts on Le Guin.

This is not the place to describe the importance of Ms. Le Guin in depth. I'll let this source summarize: "Ursula K. Le Guin has won many Nebula and Hugo Awards, as well as a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement."

The lady can write. She is a master of prose, using words, and punctuation, and point of view, and the other tools available, carefully and well, without letting them get in the way of what she is trying to say.

These are some of the highlights of The Language of the Night:
1) She ably defends the legitimacy of good fantastic literature as literature, not trash. (She also skewers trashy fantastic literature effectively)
2) She mentions authors of fantastic fiction who have influenced her. These include Cordwainer Smith, Philip K. Dick, and Tolkien. (Smith and Tolkien I have read. I have, probably to my shame, never really read Dick.)
3) She writes about why we read:

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel--or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel--is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. A person who had never known another human being could not be introspective any more than a terrier can, or a horse; he might (improbably) keep himself alive, but he could not know anything about himself, no matter how long he lived with himself. And a person who had never listened to nor read a tale or myth or parable or story, would remain ignorant of his own emotional and
spiritual heights and depths, would not know quite fully what it is to be human.

For the story--from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace--is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, butthere have been no societies that did not tell stories. p. 31. (published first in "Prophets and Mirrors: Science Fiction as a Way of Seeing," in The Living Light, Fall 1970)

4) She writes about how and why she has written as she has.
5) She deals with the problem of evil. (Le Guin is a Taoist, and apparently believes that everyone is a mixture of good and evil. She is certainly sympathetic to Christians, including Tolkien and Cordwainer Smith.)
6) She comments on an important essay by Virginia Woolf, on character in fiction, and concludes that, if fantastic fiction isn't about character, it isn't worth much.
7) She argues that science fiction is not really predictive:

This book is not extrapolative. If you like you can read it, and a lot of other science fiction, as a thought-experiment. . . . In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed.

The purpose of a thought-experiment, as the term was used by Schrödinger and other physicists, is not to predict the future--indeed Schrödinger's most famous thought-experiment goes to show that the "future," on the quantum level, cannot be predicted--but to describe reality, the present world.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. p. 156. Originally published in the 1976 edition of The Left Hand of Darkness.

(More on Schrödinger. For more on his perhaps the most famous -- and misinterpreted -- thought-experiment ever, see here. I'm not sure Le Guin interpreted it correctly, either!)
8) She describes first seeing the 3 volumes of The Lord of the Rings in a university library, and seeing them again and again, and, finally, checking the first one out, and reading the entire trilogy in three days! She says that she has re-read them many times.
9) She writes about writer's workshops.

This lady has been a writer's (and reader's) writer, and even the introductions to her books are gems.

Sunspots 25

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Article in Orion arguing that exposing children to computers hurts their education. It may be hurting mine, too . . . Thought-provoking, to say the least. Sample (there's a lot more):

Substituting the excitement of virtual connections for the deep fulfillment of firsthand engagement is like mistaking a map of a country for the land itself, or as biological philosopher Gregory Bateson put it, "eat[ing] the menu instead of your meal." No one prays over a menu. And I've never witnessed a child developing a reverence for nature while using a computer.

National Public Radio has reported on biological exploration of the Arctic, here and here. The first report is in both text and audio form, and includes photos. There are photos of some of the scientists, and of a few of the remarkable creatures found by the expedition, some of which were previously unknown. The second report, in audio format only, describes some of these animals.

Hyperion is perhaps the oddest-looking moon in the Solar System. Here's an image, from the Jet Propulsion lab, from its Cassini satellite fly-by. Here's some information on Hyperion, from the same organization. Four versions of a movie of the fly-by are available here.

Frederica Mathewes-Green believes that earlier marriage might reduce the divorce rate. She's got some other interesting opinions in her editorial in First Things.

Speaking of First Things, the periodical is now offering an RSS feed, not of its magazine articles, which are available as regular HTML files, a month after publication, or earlier, but of tidbits and opinions which aren't going to make the periodical. The first three offerings look interesting.

"Donor Gametes for Assisted Reproduction in Contemporary Jewish Law and Ethics" considers assisted reproduction from a perspective that isn't often heard. The authors touch on Roman Catholic, and even Orthodox beliefs in their discussion.

William Saletan, of Slate, has previously defended Intelligent Design. He now concludes that it is not scientific.

Ken Schenck has wrapped up a series on homosexuality and Christianity. One recurring theme is that, although homosexual practice is sinful, it is not a sin worse than, say, deceit. Schenck sheds considerable light on the culture of Bible times. His posts, as always, are thorough and have obviously required considerable thought.

Joe Carter has re-done the Church Directory, a list of Christian blogs. He also furnishes code for adding a random sample of these to your blogroll.

Gina Burkart has a web page at the CBN site, entitled "Christian Lessons from the Half-Blood Prince." I found it both comprehensive (there were some I had missed) and brief.

Gorillas use tools in the wild (Chimpanzees have been known to do this for many years).

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to two Australians, for their discovery that a bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, lives in the harshly acidic environment of the stomach and causes ulcers. One of them proved this dramatically! The Physics Prize has also been awarded, but the work is a little harder to explain.

An introduction to Intelligent Design can be found here. It explains and covers the topic pretty well, although it is clear that the author(s) aren't fans of the movement. Thanks to Brandy!

Joan Wallace, missionary to Zambia, had about $780 in missions funds stolen from her house, and feels obligated to replace it herself.

This week's Christian Carnival is here.

Image source (public domain)

A couple of pictures

Hearts-a-busting is a small bush that grows in the woods in upstate South Carolina and elsewhere. The fruit, although it is small, is spectacular. Here's a picture:



Way back on May 19th, I posted a picture of a small flower that's a member of the Aster or Composite family, to which daisies, thistles, goldenrod, and a great many more flowers belong. Two people, one from the UK, and one from somewhere near Lake Erie, were kind enough to comment, and state that the same flower, colts foot, grew there, too. Well, it grows in Washington state, too, I find, but this picture was taken here in upstate South Carolina, where some of the flowers are starting to mature. The basic function of almost all flowers, after all, is reproduction.



Thanks for reading, and looking!

Interruptions

The Wiktionary says that "to interrupt" is "to disturb or halt an ongoing process or action by interfering suddenly."

Some people have a lot of interruptions in their daily lives. My wife used to, when she was a fifth grade teacher. I had less when I was a college teacher, but sometimes a student interrupted class, or at least got me away from what I had planned to do, onto something that really concerned them, sometimes about the subject matter, sometimes not. Parents, especially parents of young children, can count on interruptions. Interruptions are often really what our job is all about.

Our Sunday School lesson yesterday was about Philip being interrupted in the middle of an evangelistic campaign in Samaria. The Holy Spirit directed, maybe physically moved him, to go into the desert to talk to an Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8).

Jesus was probably often interrupted, at least in the human sense. Bartimaeus yelled at Him when he was on the road to Jericho. Little children were brought to Him when the twelve thought He had more important business. Nicodemus came to see Him at night, perhaps while He was sleeping, or eating. In all these cases, Jesus responded. He healed Bartimaeus, told the twelve to let little children come to Him, and had a theological discussion with Nicodemus, from which we get John 3, especially verses 16-17: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. (ASV)

When I am interrupted, what am I doing that's so important? Usually not much.

May I, like Philip and Christ, see interruptions as opportunities!

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, pt. 3

In her chapter, "How to Enter In," Hannah W. Smith wrote:

Jesus saves me now. It is He.

Jesus saves me now. It is His work to save.

Jesus saves me now. I am the one to be saved.

Jesus saves me now. He is doing it every moment.

Let us sum this up. In order to enter into this blessed interior life of rest and triumph, you have two steps to take: first, entire abandonment, and second, absolute faith. No matter what the complications of your experience, no matter what your difficulties, or your surroundings, or your "peculiar temperament," these two steps will certainly bring you out into the green pastures and still waters of this life hid with Christ in God. You may be perfectly sure of this. And if you will let every other consideration go, and simply devote your attention to these two points, your progress will be rapid, and your soul will reach its desired haven far sooner than you can now think possible.

In "Difficulties Concerning Faith," she wrote:

Your idea of faith, I suppose, has been something like this. You have looked upon it as in some way a sort of thing, either a religious exercise of soul, or an inward gracious disposition of heart; something tangible, in fact, which, when you have secured it, you can look at and rejoice over, and use as a passport to God's favor, or a coin with which to purchase His gifts. And you have been praying for faith, expecting all the while to get something like this, and never having received any such thing, you are insisting upon it that you have no faith. Now faith, in fact, is not in the least this sort of thing. It is nothing at all tangible. It is simply believing God, and, like sight, it is nothing apart from its object. You might as well shut your eyes and look inside to see whether you have sight, as to look inside to discover whether you have faith. You see something, and thus know that you have sight; you believe something, and thus know that you have faith. For, as sight is only seeing, so faith is only believing. And as the only necessary thing about seeing is, that you see the thing as it is, so the only necessary thing about believing is, at you believe the thing as it is. The virtue does not lie in your believing, but in the thing you believe. If you believe the truth you are saved; if you believe a lie you are lost. The believing in both cases is the same; the things believed in are exactly opposite, and it is this which makes the mighty difference. Your salvation comes, not because your faith saves you, but because it links you to the Saviour who saves; and your believing is really nothing but the link.

. . .

You would not be able to live in this world and go through the customary routine of life a single day, if you could not trust your fellow-men. And it never enters into your head to say you cannot. But yet you do not hesitate to say, continually, that you cannot trust your God! And you excuse yourself by the plea that you are "a poor weak creature" and "have no faith."

This series, excerpting the classic book by Hannah Whitall Smith, began here, and continued here.

Natural law and oocytes

A commenter suggested that there might be objections to the use of human oocytes (unfertilized egg cells) for the production of embryonic stem cells, on the grounds that their natural purpose is human reproduction, not preparation of cell cultures which might make artificially-produced human embryonic stem cells. (See my recent post on Altered Nuclear Transfer-Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming (or ANT-OAR)) I believe that this sort of objection would be an example of moral reasoning based on natural law. Such reasoning has often been used by Roman Catholic theologians, going back to Thomas Aquinas. Natural Law theory can be complex and ambiguous.

As I understand it, natural law reasoning is used to support the official Catholic view that most or all kinds of contraception are wrong, because the purpose of sexual activity is to produce children, so that thwarting that purpose would be wrong. C. S. Lewis, who was not a Roman Catholic, also seemed to hold that view. (The web page the previous link refers to was written by me, but I have been unsuccesful in persuading the publishers to correct the spelling of my name. There are a few other errors, also minor. I am grateful that it is available, however! The section on birth control is near the end.)

So, would natural law reasoning prohibit the use of oocytes for purposes other than "normal" reproduction? It might, indeed, but I am not sure that it would, or should, for three reasons.

First, both my sources for the technique described are significantly influenced by Catholics. The editor of First Things is a Catholic priest. The other periodical, Ethics & Medics, is a publication of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, which says it "derives its message directly from the teachings of the Catholic Church." The articles in neither periodical raised this objection. (This is a link to the article there, in .PDF format)

Second, under one circumstance, I'm guessing that natural law would not prohibit use of oocytes for such a purpose. That circumstance is if the person who wished to be cured provided her own oocytes. It would seem to me that using your own oocytes in an attempt to save your life, or to significantly improve its quality, would be justifiable morally, even if it wasn't their normal purpose. I'm not aware that the use of self-grafts is opposed on moral grounds, even though, say, removing skin from the back, and placing in the nose, changes the natural purpose of such skin. (Not as radically as using oocytes for ANT-OAR, I admit.) Coronary bypass surgery also generally uses self-grafts, I believe.

Third, selfless giving for others is encouraged strongly by the teachings of Jesus, and, I suppose, could trump natural law. Should a competent ovulating woman volunteer to donate a few oocytes for the purpose of producing embryonic stem cells to significantly aid the life or well-being of another person, even for a person or persons unknown to her, it seems to me that her gift should not be refused. I would oppose any exploitation or coercion of women in order to obtain oocytes, and compensating them materially would be questionable, in my view.

Even if Catholics raised no objections to the use of oocytes in this way, others might, and such objections should be seriously considered. Here's an article on the use of donor gametes in relation to Jewish law. It doesn't consider oocyte donation for ANT-OAR.

I appreciate all comments, unless they are automated ones using my blog to try to sell something. The commenter, Bonnie, has posted extensively on moral issues, including those related to human reproduction, and is worth reading on any subject she tackles. She has some recent posts on autoerotism.

ScienceBlog has a post on "Gametes and embryos from mammalian stem cells: religious and ethics perspectives," which doesn't consider ANT-OAR, but does deal with the subject of its title. Warning: there are quite a few ads on this page.

Hydrogen fuel cells

Especially since the recent rise of gas prices in the U. S., we are hearing more about alternative fuel types. Fuel cells are a possibility. President Bush has made a couple of speeches about them.

Is this type of fuel ideal? Maybe. Probably not.

One fact that must be borne in mind is that fuel cells depending on Hydrogen require energy to produce. There is little or no free Hydrogen available. The reactivity of Hydrogen is the reason why it is such an excellent fuel. Because it is so reactive, it's not often found by itself. Because of the laws of thermodynamics, it takes more energy to produce free Hydrogen than you can get from it when it is used. If that's true, why should anyone pursue this type of energy? Well, just because an energy source requires more energy to make than you get out of it isn't necessary a hindrance to using it. Batteries require more energy to make than you can get out of them, but I would hate to do without them. They are convenient. Fuel cells may be, too.

Some energy sources are, in a manner of speaking, there for the taking. These include wood and other biomass, coal, petroleum, natural gas, dams, wind, solar, and nuclear fission. Although it takes some energy to get them, the energy obtained is greater than the amount used to obtain. All of them have advantages and drawbacks, and, of course, there is only so much energy that can be obtained from each. All of them, used on a wide scale, affect the environment negatively in some way, except perhaps biomass. Nuclear fusion may eventually be developed as a reliable energy source. If so, it, too, will have advantages and drawbacks.

It is possible that we may find organisms that release free Hydrogen, or can develop some. If so, this would put Hydrogen fuel cells into the category of energy for the taking, I suppose.

It is true that fuel cells shouldn't directly produce lots of nasty by-products, so that's good, but producing the energy that is used to produce the fuel cells, be it hydroelectric, fossil fuel, nuclear, or some other source, will result in environmental degradation.

* * * *

God willing, I shall eventually post on fantastic literature again. I also plan to return to the matter of Intelligent Design soon.

If it works, it should satisfy stem cell opponents

As is well known, lots of people are strongly opposed to embryonic stem cell research, so strongly that they are not persuaded by the possibility of benefits from this research. Lots of other people think it holds great promise, and that it should be pursued, regardless of the ethical concerns of the first group. (To many from the second group, not exploring possible medical benefits is a serious ethical concern.)

How do we solve this ethical (and political) dilemma? Perhaps we can't satisfy both groups. But, perhaps we can.

In First Things, Maureen Condic writes about "Altered Nuclear Transfer-Oocyte Assisted Reprogramming (or ANT-OAR)," and gives some explanation of this proposed technique. If it works, it would work by using "epigenetic reprogramming to convert an adult cell into an embryonic stem cell." An unfertilized human egg (oocyte) would also be used, in addition to an adult cell, in the process. The cytoplasm (material outside the nucleus) of such an egg can "turn off" the programming of an adult cell. Epigenetic reprogramming has already been done, with the assistance of oocytes, in the cloning of mammals.

At no time during this procedure, as proposed, would there ever be a human embryo, or any entity that would be capable of developing into a baby. No human embryos would be harvested. What would be needed would be unfertilized eggs and adult cells.

Should this procedure work, it might be possible to do what therapeutic cloning is supposed to do, namely produce stem cells with the power of embryonic stem cells, and derived from, and with the characteristics of, a particular adult. One such characteristic is tissue type. If an embryonic stem cell derived from me were to be used, in me, to cure, say, Parkinson's disease, my immune system would not be expected to reject such cells.

Some experiments need to be done to test the feasibility of this procedure.

Condic cites a statement, published in "Ethics and Medics," a publication of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, making this proposal. (The same issue of the publication has an interpretation of what the Pope said concerning the Schiavo case.)

Perhaps I'm a little cynical, but I wonder if some of our politicians (and others, including well-known evangelical figures, TV stars, etc.) would really accept this procedure, if it works. I fear that there would be fears of losing influence and donations (on both sides), and refusal to bury the hatchet. I hope this works, and that the embryonic stem cell political battles end in a friendly truce. I hope one side accepts this procedure, if it works, and that the other side stops calling for the use of human embryos in stem cell research.

Sunspots 24

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Face transplants have been proposed. The ethics of such transplants are considered here and here.

Scientists in the UK will be allowed to experimentally produce early embryos with mitochondrial DNA (which is separate from that in the nucleus) from a third "parent."

Transcript of Sunday, September 25, "Meet the Press," on lots of issues. One quote:
Mr. Russert: Is there the political will for Democrats and Republicans to come together and try to wean ourselves off of foreign oil?
Mr. Friedman: Well, there should be. It's obviously the centerpiece of something that could solve many problems at once. It can deal with the climate change issue. It can deal with our status in the world. It can be an inspiration to get young people to go into math, science and engineering, which we're desperate to do. I'm not saying it's the cure-all of everything . . .

Ken, at Schenck Thoughts, has been evaluating different versions of the Bible. Here's his take on the ESV. Other posts, which you will see listed in the "previous posts" sidebar of his blog, deal with several other versions. (Ken is well qualified to do this, by the way.)

Google Earth has a free version. This is a program you install that lets you see the earth, using satellite photos. Takes a fast connection. Note that pictures are not the same resolution in all areas, so you may have to adjust the altitude to see much of anything. We could clearly see autos in some locations. Also, all photos weren't all taken at the same time, so your house may be too new to be shown. Some physical features (e. g., Hayes Bluff) are identified by name.

Duh . . . I just noticed that the Firefox browser has a little red icon in the upper right corner that indicates that critical updates are available.

Paul J. Cella, III, "Technology and the Spirit of Ownership," The New Atlantis, Summer 2005. Sample:
We are told that we must make our decisions on a question like cloning human embryos on the basis of “good science,” leaving “theological” objections to the side. In this context, a critic of Leon Kass once scoffed: “Is [he] really citing the God of the Patriarchs as a guide for contemporary medical regulation?” But it is very important to recognize that, whatever one thinks of the God of the Patriarchs, someone (though he may go unnamed) must be cited as a guide for contemporary medical regulation. Perhaps it will be Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism; perhaps Rousseau and perfectability; perhaps it will simply be the “bioethics” industry and the amoral authority of the stock analyst. The point is that it will emphatically be someone. To follow the compass of “good science” alone usually means doing what is good for the scientists. But what is good for the scientists is not always good for everyone. And a nation that stands idly by as its moral imagination is silently ushered out of the room is an emasculated nation; it is the very opposite of a free people.

Apparently [part of] the leadership of the US House of Representatives continues to believe (or want to believe) that there is no such thing as global warming, and that, as long as they are in charge, there isn't going to be. (Note added 10/4/05 -- the previous link no longer works, and I can't find the article I referred to here, as the periodical has been updated. This link, about the same events, works as of 10/4/05. I added the two words in brackets at the beginning of this paragraph on the same date.)

Laura has posted a story about high school, which is meant to encourage us to encourage others.

For the first time, a giant squid has been photographed in its natural habitat. (The photo isn't that great, but the article is fascinating)

Hebrews 11:3, which, in English, seems to say that we understand by faith how the world came to be, may not exactly mean that. Whoops . . .
Thank you, Google Alerts! (You can sign up, and have Google e-mail you whenever it finds a search item.)

This week's Christian Carnival is here.

Image source (public domain)

Comments to Sept 26 post

(This color and font represents a quote from the comments to my previous post)
My last interview with a real scientist grabbed the attention of some interesting folk ... what say you?

Indeed it did, me being one such, I guess.

Thanks for the offer, but I'm not a "real scientist." I only taught at Christian institutions, and my inclination and work load resulted in me being a teacher, not a researcher, and, besides, I've now retired.

. . . in the course of your studies, did you make any discoveries that ran directly afoul of those assumptions? Many of the most important scientific discoveries in history have been made accidentally, while looking for something else. If your assumptions here were unwarranted, it stands to reason that there should have been some results you found that didn't make sense, or seemed to contradict those foundational assumptions.

You are correct on some important discoveries. Apparently the discovery of X-rays and antibiotics are examples of accidental discoveries. However, almost certainly some discoveries have not been made that might have been, because the scientist just discarded what seemed to be anomalous or unexplainable results. I wasn't really testing the foundational assumptions, and most biologists whose work has anything to do with evolution aren't, either. They're just dealing with the effects of natural selection and studying similarities between different organisms. Kuhn called this "normal science," just filling in blank spaces on the map of knowledge, not looking for new continents.

Kuhn's work was important, but it doesn't look like it actually panned out in real life. Relativity didn't gain acceptance only after those who embraced Newtonian physics had all died, and quantum mechanics didn't wait around for relativity's supporters to die, either.

Einstein resisted quantum mechanics until he died, even though some of his work made it possible. Yes, new theories may be accepted, but Kuhn/Planck are often correct that scientists who are strongly committed to an old theory don't easily give it up, or give it up at all. They just become irrelevant, if the new theory is really worth something. It would be interesting to know what will happen to string theory in 100 years or so.

I don't find change caused by selection and similarities to be terribly controversial ... nor do most creationists, even the young-earth variety. So how do you recommend distinguishing between the little "e" evolution you describe and the kind Richard Dawkins' likes to write about? It basically sounds like you are suggesting that the controversy is due to language -- if so, how do we fix the language so that scientists understand what the real controversy is about?

I wish I knew! So much damage has been done by using the word, evolution, which has multiple meanings, without indicating, or even thinking about, which meaning one is talking about. Too many (I hope) well-meaning Christians are saying "evolution is false!" or the equivalent. Some of them know better. Lots of them don't. Natural selection and similarity aren't false. What they should be saying, instead, is "I believe in a Creator," and let it go at that. Atheists should be honest, and say that they don't, and that disbelieving in a creator isn't any more scientific than believing in one. (Once in a while, an atheist really does this, but not often.) I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for clarity to erupt on a broad scale.

I refer to my three posts (link to last one) "I Believe in Evolution--so do you!" for more of my thoughts on linguistic clarity in discussing origins.

As to the main subject of your comments, namely the validity of Behe's ideas, I'm sure I don't know everything about them, and some of the arguments against them, but will try to deal with that subject in another post, later. I do know that there have been what seem to me to be serious challenges to his ideas. Also, it seems to me that what authorities say shouldn't affect acceptance or rejection of an idea--it should depend on its validity, or lack thereof. But, unfortunately, that's not the way it always works, certainly including in science.

Thanks again for writing.

Michael Behe: will he renounce Intelligent Design?

Bonnie posted a link to "My Conversation With A Cell Biologist About Evolution," and I appreciate it (She also posted a link to a follow-up, on the same blog, The Dawn Treader). The post, on Intelligent Design (ID), is interesting, and so are the comments. The author says he interviewed a professional scientist whose work has been published in academic journals. The blogger is not such a scientist. However, it is clear that he believes in ID, and that the scientist, does, too. Some of the commenters don't. I have comments, pertinent or not, so extensive that I decided to post them on my own blog.

Lest there be any doubt, I believe that there is an omnipotent God, and that He was directly involved in the origin of the universe, of living things, and of humans, and that at least some attributes of the way things are were designed by God. If that makes me an IDer, then I am one.

excerpt:
Blogger: "Is evolution practical in any way to your research?"

Prof: "Your average scientist just uses the word evolution. It is not part of the investing process. Here is the bottom line. Three words. Observable. Reproducible. Testable." [note -- surely investing should have been investigating.]

For what it's worth, which may not be a lot, as it's almost four decades old, I have a Ph. D. in genetics and zoology. My doctoral research, which has been justifiably forgotten by everyone except me, was on relationships between pigeon and dove species, as measured by their blood antigens. Evolutionary relationships were assumed by me, and, as far as I know, by all others involved in the work of my laboratory. We didn't try to test the theory of evolution, at least not to disprove it. It was assumed that natural selection works, and had worked, and that similar species were related to each other by common descent. We did study various similarities between species. I believe that the Prof. is right on the mark.

Forget evolution, whatever that means, (see this post, and the two previous ones it refers to) if you can, for a moment. Although Ph. D. stands for Doctor of Philosophy, I have never taken a course in philosophy, and any expertise I have in the subject has been picked up after I received the degree. That is true of most scientists, at least in the U. S., I believe. I was trained well, at a famous institution, and had acquaintance with three or four Nobel prize winners, and some others who could have been given one. At no time do I recall anyone ever considering the philosophical underpinnings of what we were doing. We never heard of reductionism, determinism, or epistemology. Plumbers probably aren't trained in economics, labor relations, ethics, metallurgy, ceramics, hydrology, and the like, but in how to use their equipment, and in what plumbing hardware is made of, and how it's supposed to work. Based on my experience, biologists are usually trained like plumbers. They learn how the hardware of the cell and the organism are supposed to work, and what they are made of, but not the foundational underpinnings of their fields, or in how their field affects society.

What am I saying? I'm trying to say that scientists don't often question the fundamental assumptions of their field. They just work assuming that they are true. That's one reason for resistance to alternatives to evolutionary theory.

The interview goes on to indicate that it might be dangerous to one's career to stand up for ID, at most universities. Probably. Now, back to evolution. If ID is seen as an attack on the idea of evolution, most biologists will not be happy. Why? Well, one reason is that "evolution" means many things. (ID, also, is not a single coherent set of beliefs--there are serious differences among IDers.) One thing evolution may mean is genetic change under the influence of selection. No biologist that I have ever heard of doubts that such change has occurred. For example, insects have become resistant to insecticides within recent history. For another, the different races of humans have all descended from a single small group. These facts support the idea of evolution. New varieties have arisen. (They don't contradict the Bible, either. In fact, the Bible teaches the second fact.) If evolution, in a sense more fundamental than the appearance of new varieties, occurred, and many types of organisms descended from a few, then you would expect similarities between these different types of organisms, with the amount of similarity depending on how close the relationship is. Similarities, with the amount corresponding closely to the supposed degree of relationship, are found. I know of no biologist who questions this. (They may question the reason for it.) These two ideas, change caused by selection, and similarities, are accepted facts. They can be, and almost always are, related to ideas of evolution. When evolution is questioned, it is seen as an attack on fundamental and accepted facts. If a physicist was told that there is no gravity, or are no electrical charges, she would be extremely skeptical of the teller. Similarly, the first reaction of most biologists to ideas that are said to contradict evolution will be to reject them.

It is also true, of course, that there may be opposition to ID for less valid reasons, such as denying the possibility of a supreme being, or rebelling against religious parents.

What am I saying? I'm saying that there may be what seem, to an honest person, to be reasons to question the sanity of someone proposing ID, and there may also be atheism at work.

Lest there be any doubt, I appreciate the post, and the candor of the anonymous professor.

However, I have trouble with something said in response to a comment:
It would especially be helpful to see Behe himself acknowledge that his confidence in gradualism has been restored. Though I don't know Behe personally, I suspect he has enough integrity to admit when his ideas have been soundly reversed. A good scientist should know when to run up the white flag.

So the writer is not willing to give up on ID unless Michael Behe, credentialed biological scientist, (and author of Darwin's Black Box, one of the cornerstones of ID literature) is willing to recant his support for ID? That's asking an awful lot of Behe. I don't know Behe or the person who made the statement quoted immediately above, and I'm not doubting their integrity, but there is a difference between deliberate dishonesty and self-deception. Almost everyone, surely including me, sincerely believes and supports many things in spite of the evidence--our kids should be in the game, not on the bench; our political party is right, etc., when an unbiased observer would disagree. Scientists usually believe in theories they personally have invested in, even if the evidence is against them. That's just the way people work. I would be amazed if Behe wasn't like that--he's a person. A term which applies in this case, as I understand it, is Cognitive Dissonance. Although good scientists, and others, should know when to run up the white flag, we usually don't even know it, let alone do it.

Thomas S. Kuhn wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a significant work. Part of what he said is summed up in this quote: "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." (Kuhn's source is said to have been Max Planck.) Scientists, probably even Behe, won't give up their cherished beliefs easily.

We should be willing to accept evidence that Behe's ideas are wrong, should there be any such evidence, regardless of what Behe might do with that evidence.

(I know, this cuts both ways. Even if ID was completely convincing to an unbiased person, it would be expected to take a generation for it to be accepted generally.)

As I understand Behe, and "gradualism," Behe has no problem accepting at least some gradualism.

* * * *

Corrections made, and item reposted: I erred, and mistakenly attributed a name to a poster/commenter. This has now been fixed, I hope.

That's It!

That's it! No more! I have just gotten my third spam comment in two weeks, this time, according to the "commenter" for a "Ukrainian Girls" site. Having no wish to serve as an advertising medium for Ukrainian, or any other type of girls, or for anything else, I am activating the Blogger feature that requires commenters to enter random letters in order to post a comment.

As I don't get many comments, this shouldn't be much of a hardship for the Blogosphere.

Prayer Request

I am well aware that there are people suffering a great deal more than the persons I am requesting prayer for. There are small children from the U. S. who have had both parents, and, in some cases, even more than two parents, considering the way families are often structured in our time, sent away on military assignments. There are many spouses who have been separated for long periods of time. There are many in the military who have been sent into grave danger.

In addition, there are people who have lost everything in a tsunami, or an earthquake, or a hurricane, and people who have never heard the gospel. All these, and many others, deserve my prayer and sympathy, and, perhaps, some of my material goods.

All that being said, one of our children has suddenly been given a new military assignment, a few hundred miles from her husband and less than year-old child, probably for a few weeks, in a place not expected to be dangerous, and I am requesting prayer for all three of them.

Thanks.

The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, pt. 2

I continue with excerpts from Hannah Whitall Smith's The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life.

From Smith's chapter "God's Side and Man's Side:"

To state it in brief, I would just say that man's part is to trust and God's
part is to work . . .

From her "The Life Defined:"

The point to be next considered is, as to what this hidden life consists in, and how it differs from every other sort of Christian experience.

Its chief characteristics are an entire surrender to the Lord, and a perfect trust in Him, resulting in victory over sin and inward rest of soul, and it differs from the lower range of Christian experience in that it causes us to let the Lord carry our burdens and manage our affairs for us instead of trying to do it ourselves.

When I speak of burdens, I mean everything that troubles us, whether spiritual or temporal.

I mean, first of all, ourselves. The greatest burden we have to carry in life is self. The most difficult thing we have to manage is self. Our own daily living, our frames and feelings, our especial weaknesses and temptations, and our peculiar temperaments, our inward affairs of every kind, these are the things that perplex and worry us more than anything else, and that bring us oftenest into bondage and darkness. In laying off your burdens, therefore, the first one you must get rid of is yourself. You must hand yourself and all your inward experiences, your temptations, your temperament, your frames and feelings, all over into the care and keeping of your God, and leave them there. He made you, and therefore He understands you and knows how to manage you, and you must trust Him to do it. Say to Him, "Here, Lord, I abandon myself to thee. I have tried in every way I could think of to manage myself, and to make myself what I know I ought to be, but have always failed. Now I give it up to thee. Do thou take entire possession of me. Work in me all the good pleasure of thy will. Mould and fashion me into such a vessel as seemeth good to thee. I leave myself in thy hands, and I believe thou wilt, according to thy promise, make me into a vessel unto thine honor, 'sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work.'" And here you must rest, trusting yourself thus to Him continually and absolutely.

It is generally much less difficult for us to commit the keeping of our future to the Lord than it is to commit our present. We know we are helpless as regards the future, but we feel as if the present was in our own hands, and must be carried on our own shoulders; and most of us have an unconfessed idea that it is a great deal to ask the Lord to carry ourselves, and that we cannot think of asking Him to carry our burdens too.

Who is the best cared for in every household? Is it not the little children? And does not the least of all, the helpless baby, receive the largest share? As a late writer has said, the baby "toils not, neither does he spin" and yet he is fed, and clothed, and loved, and rejoiced in more tenderly than the hardest worker of them all.


See previous post for additional excerpts, and a brief explanation of sources. God willing, I'll post more of this book in a week.

William Edward Payne, 1920-1985

I attended the funeral of W. E. Payne a couple of days ago. He had been a member of my local church for several years, since his retirement as a minister in our denomination.

One of his sons was one of the officiating ministers. The son said a couple of profound things.

1) If Christianity works at all, it works in times like this.

2) When he was in high school, his father got voted out of a church, which surprised the father. The father found out about it, and came to tell the son. The son had his career mapped out, including continuing to attend the local high school, and for that and other reasons, immediately felt resentment. The father asked the son to forgive the people who had voted against him. The son had difficulty. Then the father asked him to do it for his, the father's sake. The son was able to, and the family left the church, and the town, as friends of these people. This, said the son, was the only time any word about a church problem was heard from his parents during their life as a pastoral family. Undoubtedly there were other problems, but the children were shielded from them.

What a Christian example!

* * * *

I had this speaker as a student, and recall something, also profound, he said while in a class of mine. It was that the Bible is without error, but that his interpretation of it wasn't. (Nor, of course, is mine!)

* * * *

Our senior pastor was another officiating minister. He said, and I saw no evidence to contradict him, as a fellow member, that while Rev. Payne was a member of our church, he never commented on how things should be done, and always did what he could to help the church, teaching a class, praying, or whatever else he could.

What a Christian example!

Basketball: Monarchs, proposals

I know -- the About paragraph at the upper right of this blog page says nothing about basketball, but sometimes I can't resist (or can't think of anything else to efficiently post).


Congratulations to the Sacramento Monarchs, who won the WNBA championship on Tuesday night. I watched almost the entire game. The Connecticut Sun, who narrowly lost, were hampered by injuries to one of their stars, Lindsay Whalen, point guard. I saw Whalen on TV when she was with the University of Minnesota, two years ago. She was an exciting player, but passed the ball out of bounds a little too much. The commentators on this year's finals series said that she had been the best point guard in the WNBA, which is high praise, indeed, so she has evidently matured, and is more under control. The Sun, of course, have a number of other good players. One of their players, not quite as skilled, but good enough, is 7 foot, 2 inch Margo Dydek.

Yolanda Griffith was most valuable player for the championship series. She was also the oldest player on either team, being born March 1, 1970. She has a 16 year old daughter. The Monarch's page on Griffith indicates that she was among the league's best players (between 3rd best and 18th best) in 27 different statistical categories, which is remarkable. I'm too lazy to check, but suspect that no other player in the league compares with that. Obviously a solid player, all-around. Taj McWilliams-Franklin of the Sun was also born in 1970, also was excellent in the championship series, and is among the best players in the league in 23 different statistical categories. Also, obviously a solid player. McWilliams-Franklin has an 11 year old daughter. Both of these women appear to have improved, basketball-wise, at least, with age.


I have some suggestions for those in charge of my favorite game. I don't believe, for a tenth of a second, that anyone who is in charge will even see them, let alone implement them.

For basketball at all levels:
1) Make another line, beyond the 3-point line, and have 4-point shots, with four free throws if a player is fouled in the act of shooting from beyond this line. This should open up the game, make it more exciting, and make it possible to score lots of points in a hurry.

2) Assess fouls to more than one defensive player, if an offensive shooter is fouled by more than one person while in the act of shooting. Shooters are often clobbered by at least two persons, and only one gets a foul.

3) Cut back on the number of time-outs taken during the last two minutes of a game, or don't allow full time-outs during that period. As any fan knows, the last "few minutes" of a close game can take half an hour.

4) Have more female coaches of men's teams. Men have done very well as women's coaches (so have women--but both the Sun and the Monarchs had male coaches) so why shouldn't the reverse be true? Rick Pitino had a female assistant when he was at Kentucky, and John Thompson had a female academic advisor who sat on the bench at Georgetown. There should be more female coaches of men's teams.

5) Have more female TV commentators on men's basketball. (It's been done at least once, but there are some excellent female commentators--why restrict them to brief interviews at the end of the first half?)

For the NBA:
6) Assess more fouls to players with the ball who shove defenders (like Shaq does.)

7) Have an NBA coaching staff salary cap.

8) Don't draft players until they have finished college in their native country, or are old enough that they could have, if they had remained in college.

I have posted about basketball previously, at least here, here and here, on, respectively, a book about high school coach Bob Hurley; Reggie and Cheryl Miller, arguably basketball's first family; and Kwame Brown, a failure in the NBA who was drafted out of high school.