May 7, 2009 by Dr. Mc.

Recently you have probably heard the swine flu described in terms of deaths in Mexico, followed closely by words like “pandemic” and “quarantine.” Last time I heard, those deaths were in two digits. Any deaths are of course tragic, but for years the average lives lost to flu in the United States alone exceed 36,000. The world’s experience with swine flu hardly qualifies as a “pandemic.” As a matter of fact, people do not normally get swine flu. What people do normally get, however, is hype from the media. They got to keep you watching!
The part that amazes me is that it works. We do not get our medical information from science; we get it from popular media. Unfortunately we don’t even get most of what we call science from science. We believe and make our judgments based on a kind of “politically correct” science. By “politically correct,” I mean facts filtered and presented to the masses based on some group’s agenda. It is emotionally charged for some predetermined conclusion or action. I’m not even sure there is such thing as unbiased science, but I am sure we can do better. Does it matter? How about spending billions on finding a cure for a disease that is behaviorally correctable, while the number one killer, heart disease, receives about one eighth the funding?
Is there an agenda behind most of what we hear on global warming? I’ve seen the markers in Alaska where the glaciers once reached. No one doubts that the world is warmer than it was 200 years ago, but that was during what is now known as the “little ice age.” The earth’s temperature has fluctuated warmer and cooler as far as we can tell for all of recorded history–long before industrial pollution was invented. The cause of climate change is, to say the least, controversial. The leap that man is responsible is vanity. That we are thus able to fix it is arrogance. “You really can’t settle the issue by more heated debate…You need experimental data.”
But it sells newspapers, and it justifies research grants. It doesn’t boost either to point out that 95% of greenhouse gas is water vapor, or that CO2 is harmless to animals and essential for plants.
All my ranting so far is really about one thing: Our lives are so filled with other things, and we are so dependent on the digestion of ideas by other people, that we are suckers for someone else’s agenda. Could it be true of other “science”? Are the masses buying evolution because the evidence is so irrefutable, or could it be that the fit with secularism and research grants is not coincidental? After all, we must discover our self-made roots and whether other life has evolved out there. It’s too coincidental not to be questioned.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics, History, Science and faith | 4 Comments »

March 22, 2009 by Dr. Mc.

Last week an official letter was sent by the ACLU and others to leaders in the Obama administration protesting the denial of academic freedom for certain persons seeking admission into the United States. The apparent reason for denial of these persons’ visas was outspoken ideological differences with our government. I am not here concerned with whether these people should be allowed into the United States nor do I necessarily take issue with the missions and approaches of all the organizations that signed the letter. I would however, like to recommend that the ACLU read again this letter that they have posted on their website the next time they wish to object to a teacher who simply presents ideological or scientific criticisms to Darwinian evolution theory. To make it easier for them, I have copied the entire text below, highlighting phrases and whole sentences that could as easily fit the
mistreatment of Darwin critics; whom apparently the ACLU finds more threatening to our civil liberties than political dissidents.

March 18, 2009

Dear Attorney General Holder and Secretaries Clinton and Napolitano:

Over the last eight years, the Departments of State and Homeland Security revivedthe practice of “ideological exclusion,” refusing visas to foreign scholars, writers, artists, and activistsnot on the basis of their actions but on the basis of their ideas, political views, and associations. As a result of this practice, dozens of prominent intellectuals were barred from assuming teaching posts at U.S. universities, fulfilling

speaking engagements with U.S. audiences, and attending academic conferences. Many of those barred from the United States were vocal critics of U.S. foreign policy.

We are writing to urge you to end this practice. While the government plainly has an interest in excluding
foreign nationals who present a threat to national security,no legitimate interest is served by the exclusion
of foreign nationalson ideological grounds.

To the contrary,ideological exclusion impoverishes academic and political debate inside the United States. It sends the message to the world that our country is more interested in silencing than engaging its critics.It undermines our ability to support political dissidents in other countries. And it deprives Americans of a right protected by the First

Amendment.See Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U.S. 753 (1972).No legitimate interest is served by the government’s use of the immigrationlaws as instruments of censorship.

In fact, ideological exclusion is a practice that history had discredited long before the Bush administration. During the Cold War, the United States used the ideological exclusion provisions of the McCarran-Walter Act to bar, among others, Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Italian playwright Dario Fo, British novelist Doris Lessing, and Canadian

writer and environmentalist Farley Mowat. Those exclusions came to be seen as an embarrassment to the country, and virtually no one proposes now that those exclusions served the national interest. History will judge the ideological exclusions of the last eight years in the same way. Such exclusions are ineffective as a matter of security policy and they are inconsistent with the ideals that make this country worth defending.

The undersigned organizations are eager to see the new administration commit itself to these ideals. Accordingly, we respectfully ask (1)
that you evaluate applicants for admission to the United States on the basis of their actions rather than their political beliefs and associations; (2) that, as to foreign scholars, writers, artists, and activists who are deemed inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act, you exercise your discretion to waive inadmissibility except where articulable national security interests unrelated to the applicant’s political beliefs or associations make waiver inappropriate; and (3) that you immediately revisit the specific cases listed below:

• Iñaki Egaña. Mr. Egaña is a respected historian and writer from the Basque region of Spain. In March 2006, Mr. Egaña traveled to the United States to conduct research for a book about Basque author Mario Salegi, who was a target of McCarthyism during the 1950s. Upon disembarking the plane, however, Mr. Egaña and his children were interrogated, detained for 24 hours, and forced to return to Madrid. The government has provided no explanation for Mr. Egaña’s exclusion.

• Haluk Gerger. Professor Gerger is a Turkish sociologist and journalist. He was jailed by Turkey in the 1990s for his writing about Turkey’s Kurds. Twice during that time, in its 1994 and 1995 Country Reports on Human Rights, the U.S. State Department cited Professor Gerger’s treatment as an example of the misuse of antiterrorism legislation to stifle freedom of expression. In 1999, when Professor Gerger was on trial again for his writings, the U.S. issued Professor Gerger and his wife 10-year, multiple entry visas. In October 2002, however, when Professor

Gerger and his wife arrived at Newark airport, border officials informed them that the State Department had cancelled their visas. The governmenthas provided no explanation for Professor Gerger’s exclusion.

• Adam Habib. Professor Habib, a South African national, is a prominent human rights activist and public intellectual. Although he earned his PhD in the United States, when he attempted to visit the United States in October 2006 for professional meetings, he was interrogated for seven hours at the border and then told that his visa had been revoked. After U.S. organizations filed suit to challenge his exclusion, the government notified Professor Habib that he had been denied entry on terrorism-related grounds. It still has not has not informed him, however, of the specific legal or factual basis for its decision. The evidence strongly suggests that Professor Habib has been excluded not because of any

connection to terrorism but because of his political activism.

• Riyadh Lafta. Dr. Lafta, an Iraqi national, is Professor of Medicine at Baghdad’s Mustansiriyah University. In the fall of 2006, Dr. Lafta applied for a U.S. visa in order to attend a speaking engagement at the University of Washington that was to take place in April 2007. His visa application was denied. Although the government stated that the denial was the result of a “miscommunication,” the circumstances strongly suggest that Dr. Lafta was refused a visa because f conclusions he had drawn in a 2006 article regarding the number of civilian casualties in Iraq.

• Tariq Ramadan. Professor Ramadan, a Swiss national, is a professor at the University of Oxford and, in the words of Time magazine, “the leading Islamic thinker among Europe’s second- and third-generation Muslim immigrants.” In 2004, he was offered a teaching position at the University of Notre Dame; only days before he was to begin teaching, however, he was told that his visa had been revoked under a provision that renders inadmissible anyone who has “endorse[d] or espouse[d]” terrorism. After U.S. groups filed suit, the government abandoned the accusation that Professor Ramadan had endorsed terrorism. It continues to exclude him now, however, under the INA’s “material support” provisions. We believe that the material support provisions do not apply to Professor Ramadan, and the evidence strongly suggests that he has been excluded not because of his donations but because of his vocal criticism of U.S. foreign policy.

• Rafael de Jesus Gallego Romero. Father Gallego is a parish priest from the village of Tiquisio in North-Central Colombia, where he ministers to miners and peasants, facilitates community support initiatives, and runs a local radio station. Father Gallego is also a vocal critic of government-supported paramilitary units acting on behalf of multinational mining corporations. In the fall of 2008, Father Gallego received invitations to travel to the United States to address universities, activist organizations, community radio stations, and churches. The U.S. government simply failed to adjudicate the visa. Father Gallego eventually learned from the Provincial Jesuit, who has ties to the American Embassy, that his visa was going to be denied “for national security reasons,” buthe has never received a formal notification that his visa was adjudicated, let alone an

explanation of the grounds on which it was denied.

• Dora María Téllez. Professor Téllez was a leading figure in Nicaragua’s revolution against the brutal Somoza regime, and has served in her country as a government minister, political activist, and professor. She has also been a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy. In 2004, she was appointed Robert F. Kennedy visiting professor in Latin American Studies at Harvard’s Divinity School and Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. When Professor Téllez attempted to enroll at a language class in California in preparation for that post, however,< class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace: none; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0">her student visa was denied on the ground that she had previously engaged in terrorist acts, despite the fact that she had been granted visas to enter the United States in the past.

Ideological exclusion compromises the vitality of academic and political debate in the United States at a time when that debate is exceptionally important. The practice was misguided during the Cold War and it is misguided now. We strongly urge you to end the practice and to immediately revisit the cases noted above.

Sincerely,

(Among others)

American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California

American Federation of Teachers

Posted in Culture & society, Politics, Notable Quotes, Science and faith | 2 Comments »

August 3, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Noting that Alexis de Tocqueville completed Democracy in America in the early 1800’s, I am
amazed that he foresaw the American war of secession over slavery (1860’s) and
even that America and Russia would some day become world superpowers with
competing world views (1960’s). His power of prediction stem not from religious
claims, but from uncompromised logic, applied to carefully investigated of
facts, with clear understanding of human nature.

That understanding of human nature is most clear to me in Book 2, Chapter 2
of Democracy, where he addresses a subject that I wrestle with regularly
in my century–The inevitability (and value) of dogmatism.

According to de Tocqueville, not only are we all dogmatic,
we all must be dogmatic in order to think clearly and deeply. There are too many
things to think through, so we must trust someone else’s conclusions in order to
build and think completely about anything. Anyone who has traveled overseas, or
even into a variant of our own culture, has discovered how fatiguing it is to
simply go through the day: How and when does one cross the street? Which
direction does the traffic flow? What does a mail box look like? Things we
previously took for granted must now be thought about, draining our ability to
cope. So we in our daily lives accept as true many things we have not
investigated in order to think on other things. Our society is allowed to
accumulate knowledge, instead of reinventing the wheel every generation. This
serves us well more often than not. It is a good thing to trust and build on
trustworthy sources. But what happens when people trust the wrong source?

De Tocqueville draws another conclusion: The nature of
democracy leads people to depend more on majority thinking than on accumulated
experience.  "At periods of equality men have no faith in one another, by
reason of their common resemblance; but this very resemblance gives them almost
unbounded confidence in the judgment of the public; for it would seem probable
that, as they are all endowed with equal means of judging, the greater truth
should go with the greater number." In other words, majority thinking becomes
more powerful than experience handed down from our forefathers. History is lost.

That is a scary thought. And I’m afraid de Tocqueville has
predicted again the state of America and the free world. Those who can think,
must.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics, History | 1 Comment »

July 13, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

If parents don’t raise their kids, then television and computer games will. TV & game writers are not interested in moral character and wise society, only in addictive viewing, that is, passivity. Passivity is unfit for democracy, but works very well in a dictatorship. Where are we going, if we don’t direct ourselves?

Posted in Culture & society, Politics | No Comments »

July 6, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

On July 1, with amazingly little press, Louisiana passed
the first-ever law to protect teachers who wish to add scientific criticism to a
curriculum that requires the teaching of evolution. It’s called the Louisiana
Science Education Act, and here is the full text.

Regardless of press acknowledgment, this is quite a
landmark, It passed by a large majority, but I personally have worked in one state for five years to
get a law with similar purpose
on the books, and many other states have attempted and failed.

That being the case, one might rightly ask, "If it’s so
hard to get passed, why did it pass with such a high vote?" In my experience a
bill with similar purpose passed every committee vote but one, and that was a
tie. It passes, because senators know that their constituencies would have them
vote for it, but the trick is that it seldom gets to the floor for a vote. If an
item is hotly divisive, even with majority support, legislators work hard behind
the scenes to keep it from coming to a vote. One or two people can lock down the
entire process. I have watched this process first hand, too many times.

Now that it’s passed, the local newspaper represented the passage as if Louisiana has gone out on a lonely limb, even though the paper had good information
to the contrary. Those who oppose it, bemoan it as "anti-evolution,"
even though it specifically states, "A teacher shall teach the material
presented in the standard textbook supplied by the school system and thereafter
may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help
students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an
objective manner." Apparently they consider analysis after presentation to be
threatening. Threatening what?

In any case, this suppression of facts and distortion of
the law are perfect examples of why teachers in every state need protection if
they are to simply "analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an
objective manner."

Posted in Politics, Science and faith | No Comments »

June 23, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

I recently became aware of a book by  Helen Epstein entitled "The
Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." In good
journalist style Epstein documents the drop in AIDS cases in Uganda during the
mid-80’s and 90’s, and goes to learn for herself if there is an answer to the
world crisis. She finds one, and nobody is talking about it. At a conference a
couple of years ago I met a man recently retired from the CDC in Atlanta. I
asked if he was involved in AIDS research at the CDC, and indeed he was. I then
asked him to comment on the Ugandan phenomenon, and he didn’t know what I was
talking about. He was intrigued to hear that there was a significant drop in
infection for a decade there, but I think also a little incredulous. Why was he
hearing of this for the first time from someone outside the Center? I was asking
myself the same question.

The CDC has good information on AIDS and
transmission of HIV, but you have to read between the lines to get what is
actually happening. It begins with the following:

HIV is spread by sexual contact with an infected person, by
sharing needles and/or syringes (primarily for drug injection) with someone who
is infected, or, less commonly (and now very rarely in countries where blood is
screened for HIV antibodies), through transfusions of infected blood or blood
clotting factors. Babies born to HIV-infected women may become infected before
or during birth or through breast-feeding after birth.

OK, so HIV is spread by sex, needles, blood transfusion,
during pregnancy, delivery, and breast feeding, six basic ways. Research has
documented many ways in which HIV is NOT spread, and these include casual
kissing, skin contact, mosquitoes,
pets , and toilet seats. It has rarely occurred by French kissing or biting,
and that was in the case of blood transfer.

It only spreads through the transfer of infected body
fluids. Which ones?"HIV is found in varying concentrations or amounts in blood,
semen, vaginal fluid, breast milk, saliva, and tears." Six body fluids, and the
article later makes clear that they are listed in the order in which
concentration is found. The fluids must be living, human fluids. Once the fluid
dries, it can not infect. It cannot reproduce itself outside of a host human.
(That’s why it’s called HUMAN Immunodeficiency Virus.) Environmental transmission
is "essentially zero." Finding the source of the epidemic requires some
detective work, but is quite logical.

"Contact with saliva, tears, or sweat has never been shown
to result in transmission of HIV," so we are down to blood, semen, vaginal
fluid, and breast milk. Blood transfusions are quite safe now, because the virus
is relatively large and easy to filter from collected blood. Dirty needles are
used primarily in illegal contexts, so the epidemic is essentially traceable to
sexual contact.

It is a tragedy that some infants are born HIV positive or
catch it from the birth process or nursing. We need to find cures for their
sake, if no other, but this is not the infection responsible for the world-wide
epidemic. How did the mother become HIV positive?

Research
indicates that "women are very unlikely to pass HIV on  to another woman in
any sexual contact." There is minuscule transfer of body fluid, and infected
vaginal fluid is relatively low in concentration. That means that if we are
tracing the epidemic, the transfer is from a male to the female via sexual
penetration. How did the male become HIV positive?

It is possible for a male to catch HIV from a female,
more-so if the male is uncircumcised, but the risk is still low.
That means that in terms of an epidemic the male got it from another male. How
did the male get it from another male? We know that anal penetration is the highest sexual risk. Add to this that one can only catch HIV from someone who has HIV, and we know the culprit of the epidemic is male-male anal sex with multiple partners.

By coming to male-male transfer we complete the
investigation, because the cycle is endless at this juncture: There would be no
epidemic if male-male sex with multiple partners was halted.

The above argument does not condemn homosexual behavior in
general: the logic is not based on religion or morality. Regardless, the
conclusion is politically incorrect, because it lays the blame on a behavioral
"right." I am not so naive as to think we can simply say "stop," and it is done.
Epstein proposes a social solution. But it is not being done. Something is wrong
when a society that gives a "right" to a behavior that hurts the society.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics | 2 Comments »

April 3, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

I regret that my travel schedule will prevent me from
attending either presentation by Dinesh D’Souza in Birmingham, AL on April 17th,
but perhaps some readers are within driving distance. He is speaking at the
Latimer House Luncheon, 11:30-12:30 PM ($10 lunch) on his new book

What’s So Great about Christianity, and at Reid Chapel, Samford University at 7 PM
(free admission) on "Christianity, Islam, and the War on Terror." Neither event
requires reservation. I was not familiar with Mr. D’Souza’s work before hearing
of these events, but I am intrigued by his

Washington Post article in response to his other writings. Anyone who is
that criticized must have something to say! If you can’t attend, at least read
the article.

I can’t say at this point if I buy his total view (I
haven’t heard his total view), but in the article he well defends the following
argument: "The thrust of the radical Muslim critique of America is that
Islam is under attack from the global forces of atheism and immorality — and
that the United States is leading that attack."

The man warrants a hearing.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics | No Comments »

January 31, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

My wife just got a fund appeal letter from Planned Parenthood (PP). Perhaps
one came to your house, too. As a sociologist I am always fascinated to read how
various groups portray themselves and their opponents. In this case, PP refers
to their facilities as "health centers" and they posit that their opponents,
referred to in the letter as "anti-choice agitators" and "anti-choice hate
groups," want to stop them from "delivering education and essential health care
services." The groups in question promote abstinence-only sex education and the
reduction, if not total elimination of abortion clinics. I find on the web that
these organizations (calling themselves "pro-life," not "anti-choice") do object
to abortion on demand, but I find no where that they are against testing for
disease or referral to treatment. I’m yet to figure out who it is that they are
supposed to hate. And I personally don’t see how a woman is
"healthier" after an abortion than before, and may be the other way around. That
being the case, I don’t see that anti-abortion advocates can legitimately be
accused of wanting to shut down "health centers," unless the only "health
service" provided ends in an abortion. And if that’s the case, is "health
centers" the best phrase to describe them? If they provide other health
services, then why would they be shut down at the elimination of only one of
their "services?"

In about the middle of page 3 of their letter PP points out
that "the U.S. government has poured more than $1 billion in federal funding
over the past decade into these [abstinence only] programs." Three paragraphs
later PP acknowledges in a subordinate prepositional phrase that there has been
a "recent decline in teen pregnancy rates," but they fail to tie these two facts
together. I also note at the top of the same page that PP has been "providing
women with health care for more than 90 years." Doing a little math, I would say
that the past decade of abstinence-only teaching is more likely to be related to
the decline in pregnancies than the 90 years of PP services.

And speaking of math, on the same page I find the
statement, "Approximately 750,000 U.S. teens will become pregnant this year, and
nearly four million of them will contract a sexually transmitted infection."
Good grammar and clear communication would dictate that compared numbers all be
written in the same format. Grammar also dictates that the "them" in the second
clause further explains the "750,000 U.S. teens" in the first clause. If they
had considered these rules, they may have caught their mistake: PP says
4,000,000 of the 750,000 will catch diseases. The intended communication is
alarming, sad, and should not be taken lightly; but the grammar error suggests
just one more reason care should be taken in reading the overall letter.

In the letter PP posits that they offer "comprehensive,
medically accurate sexuality education that discusses both contraception and
abstinence." This is not what I find on their website.  I made reference to
this problem in my blog on

November 18, 2006, but looking at the PP website, I think it needs a little
more detail. The problem is behavioral license that results from issuing condoms
and a  false sense of security. I must illustrate:  On their
homepage is a link entitled, "STDs,
HIV & Safer Sex." There we read at the top of the page, "All plants and
animals that reproduce sexually develop sexually transmitted infections (STIs)."
The paragraph suggests that it’s not only normal, but "everybody’s doing it." It
encourages girls and women to discuss their sexual behavior with their
clinician. There is no mention of parents. There is no consideration that the
reader may be grappling with a behavioral choice before the fact.

Ah, in the left column are the words, "Preventing STIs/STDs." Perhaps there is
help with my decision here. Yes, that page is
titled "Preventing STI’s/STDs," but the immediate line under it is "Enjoying
Sex." Then, "When we decide to have sex, we want it to be satisfying — whether
we are women, men, intersex or transgender, married or single, young or old,
straight, lesbian, gay, or bisexual. " (Now I know why their publicity says
"sexuality education" instead of "sex education." I have only been in this
website about three minutes, and I’ve already been introduced to words that
aren’t even in my spell check.) "Enjoying your sexuality is a normal, natural
part of life." (Now I’m told that all these behaviors are "normal" and
"natural.") "Most of us have taken risks when we have had sex.." (There is no
consideration that the reader may not have had sex and might consider that
normal.)

Next they have a nice list of problems that can come with
sexually transmitted diseases. Good. But then a few lines down I read,
"Exploring safer sex can make sex more satisfying." I don’t see the abstinence
consideration here. Is abstinence anywhere in this website? To the left I see
specific diseases. Let’s try HPV, since it is arguably the most common STD, and
there is little evidence that condoms have significant preventative affect. Most
of the information presented by PP here can be directly found in the information
provided by the

Center for Disease Control, but edited and brought down a notch. I found no
misrepresentation, just reorganization. Finally,
the 570th word on this page is "abstinence!"..along with four other ways to
"reduce your risk." No comment on their relative effectiveness.
I won’t be responding to their fund appeal.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics, Science and faith | No Comments »

January 23, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to be on a press
release conference call with Ben Stein, Walt Ruloff, president of Premise Media, and Paul Lauer,
founder and President of Motive Marketing, as they
discussed the movie Expelled, opening in April of 2008. Paul lead the discussion, feeding
questions to Ben and Walt. Apparently Walt first approached Ben about the idea,
and after looking into the issue, Ben realized that there were many shortfalls
in the theory of evolution that somehow were not coming to light. A little more
investigation, and he concluded that the information was indeed suppressed. As
for Walt, his background is computer technology. He spoke of how rapidly this
science has advanced in the last few decades, and he attributes this to the fact
that "everything can be questioned," and therefore tested, alternatives
explored, and new discoveries made. He then contrasted this with biological
science, where questions are only allowed if they conform with the existing
paradigm–Darwinian evolution. Yes, many discoveries have been made in biology
in recent decades, but not because the theory of evolution compels them. And
compared with computer technology, where there is no such baggage, biological
advance is a snail’s pace. In their research they have found scientists who were denied
grants by NIH and NSF simply because they suggested empirical investigation of
alternatives to naturalism. Their conclusion is that the constraints are not
scientific but political, and therefore the fix must be political–a law
protecting scientists from scientists. They fell short of mentioning the Academic Freedom Act,
but the movie will obviously set the stage.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics, Science and faith | 3 Comments »

January 6, 2008 by Dr. Mc.

George W. Bush has been criticized for letting his faith interfere with his judgment as president. Everyone lives out their faith in daily life, not just George W. Bush. It’s just a matter of what their faith is. Those who believe one should not allow their faith to affect their daily lives simply live out their faith that there is no God that affects daily life.. and that affects their daily life.

Posted in Culture & society, Politics | 1 Comment »