Evolution vs. Creationsim

I realise this topic has been done to death, but after yet another debate on Facebook today, I'm going to chime in anyway.

We, as humans, are curious about where we came from and why we're here. That's a perfectly natural curiosity, and I would argue that a lot of religion stems from trying to answer these questions. A few thousand years ago, an omnipotent man in the sky really wasn't a bad guess, given what we knew about the universe (i.e. not much). However, a few millenia has thankfully been rather enlightening, and we now have some alternate "how we got here" explanations.

Just like you learn the technology adoption curve in business class, there seems to be a similar curve for adoption of new ideas into society, however rational they may seem to be. Not all of society is yet on board with the concept of evolution, and a subset of the "laggards" are really upset that it is being taught in science class. They've tried to force creationism, or "intelligent design" into the classroom, arguing that it is an equally legitimate explanation of how we got here.

Intelligent Design (ID) is a legitimate explanation for the origin of life (legitimate in the sense that it answers the question), but the problem with teaching it in science class is that it is not a scientifically legitimate theory. When I say scientifically legitimate, I mean that it can be proved or disproved. A scientific theory isn't just a way of explaining a phenomenon, it's a very specific way of explaining it that details how it can be tested. The problem with creationism as a scientific theory is that I have yet to hear of a creationist talk about how it can be tested, and specifically how it could be disproved (which is the most important part of a scientific theory - the provision for what evidence would constitute a disproval). As far as I know, creationism has no way to be disproven, meaning that it is not scientific, and I would argue that this disqualifies it from the science curriculum along with homeopathy and astrology.

This does not mean that creationism cannot be taught in schools, just that it cannot legitimately be taught in a science class. There are lots of schools that have religious studies classes, and creationism, as a religious idea, is more than suited to the curriculum. This is similar to the way that the philosophical idea that we are all just minds with bodies floating in some abyss of mutual consciousness is better suited to philosophy class than to science class. It is also an explanation of how we exist, but cannot be proven or disproven, similar to creationism.

There is the tangential debate about how teaching evolution as a mandatory topic will interfere with political and religious freedom. I argue that this is preposterous. In my (mandatory) class on US Government, I learned about Roe v. Wade and how it essentially legalised abortion nation-wide. Never was I told whether or not abortion was ethical or moral, or whether or not it should be legal, because that would be a debate for an ethics or philosophy class. I was, however, required to know the facts of the case and the outcome. The purpose of the class on US Government was to teach me the state of the US Government, just like the purpose of science class is to teach students about scientific thinking and the state of science. Scientists, and the field of science in general, almost universally accept evolution as the explanation for life on Earth, which is why it belongs in science class (and students are never required to believe in evolution, only to be able to recite and process the scientific facts). Should there be some radical discovery that disproved evolution (and remember, since evolution is a scientific theory, it can always be disproved), it would stop belonging in science class and start belonging in science history class. But since evolution is the current thinking in the field of science, it should continue being taught in the same way that major supreme court decisions should continue being taught despite the major political battles raging surrounding them.

If people want creationism taught in schools, start campaigning to have religious studies classes offered at more schools, but for the love of Evolution, leave our science classes alone.

The Mystery of Women...

I was recently reading this brilliant article on women. In particular, the author (Jean Hannah Edelstein for the Guardian) responds to Stephen Hawking's recent assertion that women are a totally enigmatic to him with a few tips on unravelling the mystery.

Edelstein's last point is the one that hit home for me the most. I've taken the liberty of pasting the text here:

'Much like scientists think creationists are lazy-minded, women aren't keen on men who make sweeping generalisations about our "mysteriousness". It's one thing to say that you have trouble understanding particular women you interact with, or to admit that you find romantic relationships challenging. But to say that we are all a mystery could be taken as someone positioning himself to dismiss and marginalise us; to imply that our opinions and ideas don't matter because we're intrinsically inexplicable. And that would be a disgrace. In future, if you are going to make a sweeping generalisation about women, try phrasing the sentence with the word "people" in place of "women". Does it make you sound daft? Maybe a little bigoted? It's OK. Few experiments work the first time.'

When paired with another point that Edelstein makes - that men and women both enjoy sex, but they enjoy it in different ways and experience it differently - I think this hits at the core of a common problem with the communication between men and women. It's not just about sex, either, although that seems to be a common problem. Men and women experience and think about situations differently.

On this topic, I too would like to avoid sweeping generalisations about men and women, but this is a hard point to make without generalising a little bit. Whether or not gender-specific attitudes towards sex are innate or socialised (probably a little of both), there are certainly stereotypical attitudes and feelings that can be touched upon.

I would first like to point out that men do not find women mysterious in all circumstances. They seem to find them most mysterious in the context of sex and relationships. In academic, professional, or social circumstances, men do not seem to find women all that confusing as evidenced by their general ability to interact with them fairly functionally. Go to any pub or restaurant and you will see groups of men and women interacting on a friendly basis, obeying the same social norms and conversation conventions, the men seemingly forgetting or ignoring their utter bafflement with half their social group.

But get a man into a relationship with one of these women and they will start going on about how "confusing" women are. It seems that what men actually mean when they say they don't understand women is: "I don't understand why this woman does not want to sleep with me." That aside, to explore the source of this confusion, let's start with a story:

Joe is on his first trip to the big city. He is from a small, rural town where everyone knows each other. As such, paper currency is almost nonexistent, and the local economy functions solely on trading and trust. In the city, Joe needs to pick up some supplies, so he goes into a store, selects the items he needs, walks up to the woman running the store (let's call her Elaine), and hands her a chicken. Understandably, Elaine is confused with this gift of a chicken and refuses to accept it. "Why are you giving me a chicken?" Elaine asks, truly baffled and a little disturbed because the chicken doesn't seem totally sanitary. "I think a chicken is a fair price for this!" says Joe, incensed that Elaine will not take his chicken. On second thought, he adds "although I can throw in some cheese," in case the prices are higher in the city. Joe and Elaine go back and forth, Joe not understanding why she won't take the chicken, and Elaine frustrated that she seems to be dealing with a crazy person trying to trade a farm animal for household goods.

When Joe leaves the store, he might meet up with his friends later and say "women, huh? Who understands 'em. She wouldn't take my chicken! And she wouldn't even tell me why!"

Meanwhile, Elaine can't understand why Joe wouldn't just pay with paper money.

What we can see fairly easily in this situation is that neither Joe nor Elaine was right or wrong. Joe came from an environment that did not deal in paper currency, and therefore he did not understand paper currency or even think to use paper currency in a standard transaction. Elaine was raised to only accept paper currency (or perhaps credit cards) as valid currency, and moreover had no desire or use for a chicken.

This seems to be what happens in a lot of relationships. Both people ultimately want the same thing, but they're coming from totally different places and having trouble finding a middle ground. Joe wants to buy some supplies and Elaine wants to sell them, but they think about the transaction totally differently.

Let's take one big, ubiquitous issue: sex. The common assumption is that men want sex and women don't, or that women want sex less than men, or that men have to do buy women things or take them on extravagant dates to lure women into bed. This is not true. Both men and women like and want sex very much, but their feelings around sex often differ.

One adage I once heard really resonated with me: "Men need sex to feel good, but women need to feel good to have sex."

While this is true, it also hints at the larger problem: men seem to process things discreetly while women process them continually. For men (generally), one act leads to a general feeling of well-being, while for women a lot of good things need to accumulate.

I think this leads to a lot of tension between men and women in relationships, because men tend to think that they can trade discreet things or actions for a result (whether that result is sex or not being nagged). What they cannot understand is that a box of chocolates or flowers or a nice date cannot make up for a month of emotional neglect. The good and bad things accumulate over time, so it's the trend that matters, not the individual actions.

I understand why men might find this confusing at first. Let's say that after a few years of a relationship, Robert is frustrated because he and Joanne are not being intimate often enough, and Joanne is frustrated because Robert seems to have forgotten that she is a human being and not a live-in laundry and cleaning service. During one of their conversations, Robert voices his concern, and Joanne complains that Robert never does nice things for her anymore. The following evening, Robert brings home flowers. Joanne is touched, but she doesn't immediately get naked. Or even if she does, she does not revert to being the insatiable vixen that she was at the beginning of their relationship. Robert is confused because he is doing nice things for Joanne, but she remains relatively uninterested in doing the nasty. Robert might complain to his friends over a few beers that "women don't know what they want" or that they're "impossible to please."

What Robert might be missing here is that he gave Joanne flowers and then went and played video games for two hours instead of asking Joanne how her day was. The positive action was cancelled out by the negative action that followed, but Robert, as a man, did not see his action in the context of the surrounding action, and Joanne was not able to communicate that what she needed was an overall pattern of attentiveness, not token gestures.

Birth control aside, women are (probably) hard-wired to think about the long-term consequences of sex, so they're looking for a pattern of good behaviour (that would demonstrate, say, the likelihood that a man wouldn't bail in the worst-case scenario), not just the ability to do a handful of nice things to get them in the sack. If that's not striking a chord with you men out there, think about how offended a woman would be if you slapped a $20 bill on the table and asked her to get it on. Why do you think she is going to react any differently to a $20 box of chocolates or a $20 bouquet of flowers? Obviously some women do react differently, but don't be surprised if she doesn't suddenly pin you to a wall and yank your pants off.

The important point here, however, is that neither the man nor the woman's way of thinking about things is right or wrong; they are just coming from different places. What is not productive is for the man (or the woman) to label these differences as a "mystery". Both genders need to spend more time and effort trying to explain what they really need and stop focusing on the apparent "flaws" in the other gender. Obviously, as a woman, I have focused primarily on women here, but there is a lot of room for improvement on both sides of the fence.

Finally, to men everywhere I say this: women do not want your chicken. What women want, in fact, is not a discreet amount of currency. They want a payment plan. It is far more important to them to see a small amount of money consistently than a large sum all at once and just once. And to women: sometimes, take the chicken. Maybe it's not exactly what you wanted, but remember that your man really thought it was.

No Handouts, Part 2

As we approach Christmas, the conservative and religious US is abuzz with tales of the "war on Christmas": the supposed sabotage by the godless left of America's most beloved holiday.

The UK has a slightly more secular version of Christmas, so many people here are shocked to learn that I never celebrated Christmas in the States, and are even more taken aback when I explained that I never received any Christmas presents.

"You didn't even get Hanukah presents?" they ask, horrified, as if a child not receiving gifts within a week of the winter solstice is one of the great possible human tragedies.

The truth is that I don't come from a very presents-centric family. I always got a birthday present, but other than that the general attitude of my parents was that gifts should be earned. If I wanted a new barbie doll, I had better pitch in with chores around the house. If I wanted a new pair of jeans, my homework better be handed in on time. There was no day of the year when I was showered with gifts just because other children in the western world also were.

The irony for me about this whole ordeal is that the "War on Christmas" people are also the faux-libertarian "no handouts" people - the conservatives who believe that under no circumstances should anyone ever be given something they haven't earned or worked for. "Get a job" they say to the recently unemployed who can't afford healthcare. "Why should we help you when you're not willing to help yourselves?"

These people will then go home and, on December 25th, for no particular reason (because a good deal of evidence points to the fact that Jesus was not actually born in December at all) give their kids a bunch of gifts that they in no way earned (sure, they say it's because Santa knows who's been naughty or nice, but do you know anyone who's given their kid a lump of coal?). If that's not a handout, I don't know what is. I'd like to see one conservative parent try to cancel Christmas and make their kids earn their gifts this year. Because if Christmas is truly an American holiday, and America is about working for what you have without any help from anyone else, then what's more un-American than indoctrinating kids into the handouts culture this early in life? Conservative parents should be ashamed.

There may be a war on Christmas, but only because Christmas is waging war on America.

No Handouts, Part 1

I stumbled across another conservative blogger's "no handouts" tirade against Occupy Wall Street the other day. Her argument was that she, an able-bodied, educated, white woman had worked for what she had (well, after she moved out of her parents' house) and that everyone else could do the same. Why should the government have to help out lazy, irresponsible people?

Let's assume for a moment that we do actually live in a world where hard work is rewarded reasonably and laziness is punished (and this is indeed the world that the "no handouts" people are professing that we live in). Now let's watch what happens when a lazy person has a baby. If we truly want a "no handouts" society, that lazy person is not entitled to healthcare for her child, not even when she is pregnant or in labour. She and her child could easily die in childbirth or shortly thereafter. Now ask yourself: does that child deserve to die or live in severe poverty just because it was born to a lazy parent?

If you are like most people, your gut reaction is no (and I should certainly hope it is, particularly if you are a member of the anti-abortion lobby who continually claim that a baby's life is sacred and worth saving. I gather this is true after it is born as well). Clearly in the no-handouts society there should still be some provision for children, right?

And if you still say no, consider this. Parents can sometimes not provide health insurance or healthcare for their children. In a no-handouts society, this means no vaccinations, which means that your kid could be going to school with a little boy or girl with measles or polio. Is that what you want?

Let's now make the assumption that you agree with me, and that in some circumstances, to protect the very vulnerable who cannot help themselves, that handouts are ok. Even if you think that the best course of action would be to take children away from parents who cannot provide for them, that still means public financing of things like orphanages and foster programmes, which is just another form of hand-out, right?

It's hard to know where to draw the line, though, because when do those kids who required assistance suddenly get the plug pulled? When do they become ineligible for support? Is it when they're 5? 10? 18? And what about their parents? How can a mother care for her son or daughter when she is struggling because she is plagued with an illness that she can't afford to treat? Is it ok for her to have a hand-out to allow her to care for her child? Or is that going too far?

So let's take a long, hard look at the no-handouts world.

If you are a hard-working, productive adult, but you suffer a horrible accident that makes it impossible for you to work, if you have not taken the proper precautions and saved up enough money to last you the rest of your life (and assuming that your savings have not been emptied by an irresponsible Enron-like corporation), you will be allowed to die, because as a non-working adult, you are not contributing to society and deserve nothing in return. It does not matter if you are caring for a child, spouse, or ageing parent. They will just have to learn to fend for themselves.

If a non-working parent has a child, that child has no right to health-care and will be allowed to die.

The minute a person becomes unable to work and their savings run out, they will be allowed to fall ill and potentially die.

Aside from the clear moral problems here, there are some logistical ones as well. Some people seem to have assumed that by minimizing handouts, you somehow maximise the productiveness of society. But just think about someone who has a parent fall ill. That person will spend a lot of their own money and time to help care for their parent because they cannot necessarily afford healthcare. They may even work fewer hours or stop working altogether in order to give their parent the care they need. What you have done in that case is make society less productive, whereas if some care were provided for the ageing parent, you would have two people in employment instead of none (the person caring for their parent, and the carer that would then be employed to help provide care). The no-handouts people so easily forget that there are other people in this system, and that depriving one person of help can have far-reaching ramifications.

Ultimately, though, it seems we have lost sight of what the government is actually for.

If I have a great idea and I want to start a company, it doesn't just happen by magic. I might invest a little of my own money to get my idea started, but then I ask people to invest in my idea in order to really get it off the ground. I challenge you all to find more than a handful of successful companies that weren't reliant on investors in the initial stages of starting up (and probably after that as well). We recognise this as a completely natural model for turning high potential into high returns.

The government should exist as an investor, but what it should be investing in is its own citizens. It already does this to some extent. For example, we invest in our own safety with the military. We invest in commerce and communication with roads and other infrastructure. We invest in public health with sewage systems.

To some extent, we also invest in people directly. Public education, no matter how flawed, is meant to invest in the development of individuals to allow them to become productive members of society. These people, however, cannot take advantage of public education if they are sick, or if they are faint from hunger, or if they are secretly working to support their families.

Why is it that the same people who are so willing to give hand-outs to start-up companies, where the success rate is something like 1 in 10, are so reluctant for the government to give hand-outs to its citizens, where the success rate could be so much higher? How are we meant to build a stronger nation if no one is willing to invest in its machinery: the people?

If you look at countries that do invest in their citizens, you will notice that many of those countries are thriving. Those who wonder how China has become so dominant on the world stage need only look at the money the Chinese government has poured into things like education to understand that a short-sighted, tight-fisted view will help no one in the long term. So to the no-handouts people, I say this: it's time we all put a little bit into the investment pot so that we can start seeing the returns.

Rick Perry Strong

I was recently unfortunate enough to view Rick Perry's latest advertising abomination:

Click here to watch (for those with a strong stomach).

Perry's basic assertion is that it's unfair that gays can serve in the military but that children can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

I barely know where to start.

First of all, Perry confuses active discrimination and freedom of religion. If gays could serve in the military but children who celebrated Christmas were not allowed to go to school, Perry's comparison might begin to approach fair. There has always been a difference, however, between rights we exercise publicly and those we exercise in our personal lives.

Let's briefly make the (in my opinion incorrect) assumption that being gay is a choice. Let's also throw it out there that being Christian is a choice. Actually, practicing any religion is a choice. Religious people make it very clear that their religious choices should not influence how they are treated outside their places of worship, so I see no reason why other personal choices should affect how people are treated outside the home. It makes it even worse that these people have made the choice to serve their country, protecting the very people who think their lives and rights are somehow worth less.

What I'd really like to do, though, is discuss this continual assertion that the school system has somehow made war on religion. This is just simply not true.

Children are free to pray in school, they are just not free to pray in class. At my middle school, there was a Muslim girl, and as our lunch period overlapped with one of the five daily periods of Muslim prayer, the teachers let her use an empty classroom for a few minutes while the rest of us talked about which boys we thought were cute over sandwiches and juice boxes. No one was really bothered by this since she did it in private and never pressured anyone to join her, nor was she ever prevented by the school from practicing her religion as long as it did not disrupt school activities.

My high school had a very strict dress code, including a ban on visible piercings and tattoos. However, this was relaxed to allow for a few nose piercings mandated by some students' religions. There was also a ban on death images, but Catholics were allowed to wear crucifix necklaces. A few Muslim students also worse head scarves to school in what would appear to be a violation of the "no hats" policy. None of these students, however, were prevented from wearing religious clothing or paraphernalia precisely because the school did not want to interfere with their religious choices.

America was founded on the principle of freedom of religion, and that means any religion, including no religion at all. Children are not prevented by schools from practicing their religion, but they are made to do it in a non-disruptive way. Since religion is a personal choice, it is subject to the same restrictions as other personal choices to make sure that the school environment is conducive to learning (for example, I can choose to walk around my house naked all day long, but I think everyone is grateful that myself and others are forced to put on clothes when they go to work or school).

If Rick Perry does want prayer in the classroom, he has to remember that it can be prayer from any religion. That means that while the Christians are saying Our Fathers, the Muslims can be reading from the Koran, the Jews can be lighting Chanukah candles (why should fire and safety regulations interfere with free practice of religion?), and I can be prancing around screaming a Satanist chant if I want to. Is that the public classroom that Rick Perry really wants?

If faith did indeed made America strong, it was the freedom to practice, or not practice, that faith that fed and continues to feed that strength. That means that schools cannot mandate or encourage any particular religion since they are extensions of the government (and indeed non-government schools are exempt from religious abstention). I will endlessly defend the right of others to practice whatever religion they wish, but I will also defend my right not to be encouraged or mandated by anyone, but particularly by our government, to have or practice a religion, because that is my America.

Welcome to the blog

I will fully admit that at one point I viewed personal blogs as narcissistic and unnecessary, but I've changed my mind. Largely, I've come to the realisation that I have thoughts and experiences that I'd like to share, and no one is under any obligation to read them. Hopefully some people will find them interesting or entertaining, at which point I think that my small contribution to the clutter of the internet can be deemed worthwhile.