One issue I did not cover from the first presidential debate was the discussion of Henry Kissinger's opinion of talks with Iran and other unfriendly states. I did not cover it for several reasons:
1) Henry Kissenger is not infallible, and while his opinion may carry more weight than most, no one man's opinion is worthy of being a debate issue.
2) The candidates seemed determined to argue over what seemed like a near total agreement on the issue. McCain said he did not believe that the president should sit down across the table from the Iranian leader right now, and Obama agreed. Obama said we could begin talks at lower levels without preconditions, and McCain seemed to agree (by omission). Beyond that the difference between their positions seemed too trivial to warrant the level of time they spent on it.
3) It wasn't the sort of exchange that lent itself to quick, entertaining sound bites, and that (sadly) has been the currency of presidential debates. Detailed substance on particular policies stopped mattering a long time ago. Ask Gore and Nixon.
Nonetheless, the issue has maintained a high profile over the disputed support of Henry Kissinger. Here is Fact Check's summary:
"Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality," Kissinger said in statement issued by the McCain campaign.
...
While it appears Kissinger and Senator Barack Obama disagree on what level those talks should occur, they do agree talks should begin, in Kissinger's words, “at a very high level” and without preconditions.
So McCain is right at the presidential level, though Onama never disputed that, and Obama agrees with Kissinger on the lower levels. And that, hopefully, will be that.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Reagan, Clinton, and Palin? Dick Morris, Palinist, Idiot of the Year
Just when I think I've seen everything, I see Dick Morris write this:
"Last night was a big, big win for Sarah Palin.
She showed originality, charisma and sass - a style that is refreshing and different in our politics. She didn't just win the vice-presidential debate, she showed that she belongs with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as among the best communicators of our modern political times."
This is beyond absurd. This is like comparing a player for the Washington Generals (who routinely lose to the Harlem Globetrotters) to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, or John Denver as a guitar player to Jimi Hendrix. Does this sound like a line Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan would ever utter:
"We will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive, and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position."
That's not a great communicator, that's an amateur struggling to find something to say when she's been led to a question she has no script for. As one reads the comments on Dick Morris' thread, and others in the insulated world of the tinfoil hat brigade that is left on Palin's side, one can be forgiven for wondering if there is some disease or mass mental illness effecting people like Morris, who can't see (or won't admit) the absolute fake this woman is. She can't even answer the question "What books or magazines do you read?". She is a prop, a lure for votes, who does nothing but recite memorized speeches, and babble nonsense. She's a Stepford Republican. Best communicator of modern times? She's not even the equivalent of a poor communicator in ancient times.
It seems we need a new word for this, so here it is:
Palinist - a person suffering from Palinism, the inability to recognize the incompetence, insincerity, and complete lack of intelligence of a person if that person is perceived to be politically agreeable with your political philosophy and allegiance, and parrots compatible phrases.
Palinist Dick Morris: Idiot of the Year.
"Last night was a big, big win for Sarah Palin.
She showed originality, charisma and sass - a style that is refreshing and different in our politics. She didn't just win the vice-presidential debate, she showed that she belongs with Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton as among the best communicators of our modern political times."
This is beyond absurd. This is like comparing a player for the Washington Generals (who routinely lose to the Harlem Globetrotters) to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, or John Denver as a guitar player to Jimi Hendrix. Does this sound like a line Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan would ever utter:
"We will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive, and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position."
That's not a great communicator, that's an amateur struggling to find something to say when she's been led to a question she has no script for. As one reads the comments on Dick Morris' thread, and others in the insulated world of the tinfoil hat brigade that is left on Palin's side, one can be forgiven for wondering if there is some disease or mass mental illness effecting people like Morris, who can't see (or won't admit) the absolute fake this woman is. She can't even answer the question "What books or magazines do you read?". She is a prop, a lure for votes, who does nothing but recite memorized speeches, and babble nonsense. She's a Stepford Republican. Best communicator of modern times? She's not even the equivalent of a poor communicator in ancient times.
It seems we need a new word for this, so here it is:
Palinist - a person suffering from Palinism, the inability to recognize the incompetence, insincerity, and complete lack of intelligence of a person if that person is perceived to be politically agreeable with your political philosophy and allegiance, and parrots compatible phrases.
Palinist Dick Morris: Idiot of the Year.
Discovery Institute Goes Orwellian on Banned Books Week
In their usual Orwellian way, Casey Luskin and the DI are going all Orwellian on Banned Books week, and claiming that librarian decisions to not carry ID pseudoscience on their shelves amounts to the same thing. The chosen example was the case of two librarians cited in a Rutgers Journal of Law review by New York Law School professor Stephen A. Newman:
"Consider the experience of two librarians who received copies of two intelligent design books, Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe and Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson, as donations to their high school collections. When the librarians refused to put the books on the school library shelves, they were accused of censorship. In fact, exercising their professional judgment, they concluded that these books had 'little or no value to our students and come from those with ulterior motives."
Seems reasonable enough. Obviously librarians aren't required to shelve every book that comes their way. A book pushing a pseudoscientific fraud like ID is more likely to confuse students than it is to aid their education, so its exclusion from the school shelves should hardly be controversial. Casey Luskin and crew of course, play their own Orwellian semantic games while simultaneously accusing Newman of engaging in his own newspeak:
"Professional Judgment": In Newman's Newspeak, he praises these librarians for exercising their "professional judgment" by banning these books. But for those of us who aren't interested in Newspeak, why should we consider their “professional judgment” anything less than dogmatically censoring viewpoints they don't like? It seems that some Darwinist librarians and academics really aren't about open access to information; they're about using their power to indoctrinate students by censoring ideas they disagree with."
This is a childishly simplistic view, and an easy one to disprove. Simply ask the librarians to point out some books on their shelves whose viewpoints they don't like, or disagree with. They would no doubt have little difficulty showing us numerous examples. Literature, after all, has plenty to offend and disagree with, and it would be nearly logically impossible to be a librarian and have no books which espouse disagreeable (to you) views. The DI's argument is stale, obviously false, and downright dishonest.
The problem here has nothing to do with personal disagreement. It has to do with what is honest scholarship and what is a scam. One doesn't need to have personal disagreement with the contents of Behe's and Johnson's books to find reason to exclude them. The Wedge Document explains the scam, a judge in Dover ruled it was so, and the scientific establishment has been saying so since long before that. Any librarian who is interested in assisting her students in the learning process is not going to expose them to a pseudoscientific scam like ID any more than they should expose them to books promoting faith healing, Velikovsky astronomy, or alchemy. It is good pedagogy to let students get a basic understanding of a subject before expecting them to be able to recognize a scam for what it is. Scams work best on the ignorant, which is a big reason the IDers are so much more interested in high school textbooks and libraries than in peer reviewed scientific journals in the first place.
"Access to ideas": Newman tries to hide his censorious approach by paying lip service to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 1982 case Board of Education v. Pico. He states, "Students must have access to ideas, to prepare 'for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.'” (quoting Pico, pg. 868). In Newman's newspeak, I suppose that giving students "access to ideas" means that books that express scientific dissent from neo-Darwinism should be banned from school libraries.
No Casey, any books with scientific arguments in biology are welcome. You don't have any. Neither Behe's, nor Dembski's, nor Johnson's books have scientific merit. They were universally panned in the scientific and mathematical communities, and have a paltry record of references from other writers. That means they spawned basically no new research, which would be astonishing for a new scientific idea (check out evo-devo references) proposed nearly 20 years ago.
"Undermining the teaching of evolution": Continuing his Orwellian approach, Newman asserts, "Undermining the teaching of evolution deprives [students] of access to the best ideas in science." But no one in the ID movement is advocating that any less evolution be taught than currently is taught. And placing these pro-ID books in the library certainly won't prevent evolution from being taught in the classroom.
No, it will just confuse the children with arguments that, while unscientific, are sufficiently complicated and impressive-looking to dupe your average pubescent teen who's thinking about his potential prom date the entire time. It is Luskin who is being Orwellian here, pretending that undermining an idea requires suppressing it. Drowning it out by placing it among irrelevant alternatives is also an effect technique, and they know it.
There is also the trivial fact that there is limited class time in our biology classes, it is not nearly as much as we'd like, and therefore every tiny moment any student spends thinking about ID is a moment he lost from his scientific education. Anything added to the curriculum must, by its nature, dislodge something else to take its place.
"Under such an approach, evolution is not censored, but it's taught with both its strengths and its weaknesses. Call this "undermining" or give it whatever Newspeak labels you want: such a balanced approach is completely inimical to the indoctrination that takes place when viewpoints are censored so only one viewpoint will be heard."
Undermining will do nicely, thank you. Limiting biology class to evolution is no more indoctrination than it is to only teach that the holocaust occurred, or that there is no ether. Science does not have viewpoints. That is the realm of historians, philosophers, and novelists. Science has experiments, hypotheses, data, and theory. Viewpoints have no place there. "The earth is beautiful" is a viewpoint. "Killing is wrong" is a viewpoint. "The earth is a great deal older than 6,000 years" is not a viewpoint, it is a fact, as is "species evolve over time".
"prepare 'for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society": In Newman's Newspeak, the way to "prepare" students to participate in scientific discussions on this topic is apparently to censor scientific viewpoints that dissent from neo-Darwinism. But most folks, including most of U.S. Congress, tend to believe that preparing students to participate in public discussions about biological evolution dictates that they should learn about more than one scientific viewpoint on this topic"
Once again, Casey is guilty of pretending ID is a science. It's not, it's a pseudoscience with a socio/political agenda, and there is no reason students preparing for actual scientific discourse need bother with such things. See, the fact the DI desperately wants people to not understand is that scientific discourse is done in peer-reviewed scientific journals, not in popular books and live debates. Yet ID is absent from the top journals, with their supporters either reinterpreting other scientists' work to their benefit (and almost always in contradiction to what the authors say), or publishing contentless musings in journals of ill-repute.
In serious scientific discussion, there is no ID, and its not for lack of leaving the door open. They simply won't walk through it. It's the telltale sign of a scam. Students entering the scientific world will not miss it.
Luskin and crew have Newman's argument, which I'll close with, and it's really all that needs to be said. All the DI has is the sour grapes of every crank that loses in the marketplace of ideas and can't admit defeat.
"According to Professor Newman, the librarians rightly justified their censorship of Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box and Phillip Johnson's book Darwin on Trial from the school library as follows: "The books did not meet the usual selection criteria, which required that books 'support the curriculum, receive favorable reviews from professional journals, and be age-appropriate.' Noting that intelligent design theory had been 'repudiated by every leading scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences,' the librarians determined that teaching intelligent design 'would be tantamount to teaching about the existence of Santa Claus.'"
"Consider the experience of two librarians who received copies of two intelligent design books, Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe and Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson, as donations to their high school collections. When the librarians refused to put the books on the school library shelves, they were accused of censorship. In fact, exercising their professional judgment, they concluded that these books had 'little or no value to our students and come from those with ulterior motives."
Seems reasonable enough. Obviously librarians aren't required to shelve every book that comes their way. A book pushing a pseudoscientific fraud like ID is more likely to confuse students than it is to aid their education, so its exclusion from the school shelves should hardly be controversial. Casey Luskin and crew of course, play their own Orwellian semantic games while simultaneously accusing Newman of engaging in his own newspeak:
"Professional Judgment": In Newman's Newspeak, he praises these librarians for exercising their "professional judgment" by banning these books. But for those of us who aren't interested in Newspeak, why should we consider their “professional judgment” anything less than dogmatically censoring viewpoints they don't like? It seems that some Darwinist librarians and academics really aren't about open access to information; they're about using their power to indoctrinate students by censoring ideas they disagree with."
This is a childishly simplistic view, and an easy one to disprove. Simply ask the librarians to point out some books on their shelves whose viewpoints they don't like, or disagree with. They would no doubt have little difficulty showing us numerous examples. Literature, after all, has plenty to offend and disagree with, and it would be nearly logically impossible to be a librarian and have no books which espouse disagreeable (to you) views. The DI's argument is stale, obviously false, and downright dishonest.
The problem here has nothing to do with personal disagreement. It has to do with what is honest scholarship and what is a scam. One doesn't need to have personal disagreement with the contents of Behe's and Johnson's books to find reason to exclude them. The Wedge Document explains the scam, a judge in Dover ruled it was so, and the scientific establishment has been saying so since long before that. Any librarian who is interested in assisting her students in the learning process is not going to expose them to a pseudoscientific scam like ID any more than they should expose them to books promoting faith healing, Velikovsky astronomy, or alchemy. It is good pedagogy to let students get a basic understanding of a subject before expecting them to be able to recognize a scam for what it is. Scams work best on the ignorant, which is a big reason the IDers are so much more interested in high school textbooks and libraries than in peer reviewed scientific journals in the first place.
"Access to ideas": Newman tries to hide his censorious approach by paying lip service to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the 1982 case Board of Education v. Pico. He states, "Students must have access to ideas, to prepare 'for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.'” (quoting Pico, pg. 868). In Newman's newspeak, I suppose that giving students "access to ideas" means that books that express scientific dissent from neo-Darwinism should be banned from school libraries.
No Casey, any books with scientific arguments in biology are welcome. You don't have any. Neither Behe's, nor Dembski's, nor Johnson's books have scientific merit. They were universally panned in the scientific and mathematical communities, and have a paltry record of references from other writers. That means they spawned basically no new research, which would be astonishing for a new scientific idea (check out evo-devo references) proposed nearly 20 years ago.
"Undermining the teaching of evolution": Continuing his Orwellian approach, Newman asserts, "Undermining the teaching of evolution deprives [students] of access to the best ideas in science." But no one in the ID movement is advocating that any less evolution be taught than currently is taught. And placing these pro-ID books in the library certainly won't prevent evolution from being taught in the classroom.
No, it will just confuse the children with arguments that, while unscientific, are sufficiently complicated and impressive-looking to dupe your average pubescent teen who's thinking about his potential prom date the entire time. It is Luskin who is being Orwellian here, pretending that undermining an idea requires suppressing it. Drowning it out by placing it among irrelevant alternatives is also an effect technique, and they know it.
There is also the trivial fact that there is limited class time in our biology classes, it is not nearly as much as we'd like, and therefore every tiny moment any student spends thinking about ID is a moment he lost from his scientific education. Anything added to the curriculum must, by its nature, dislodge something else to take its place.
"Under such an approach, evolution is not censored, but it's taught with both its strengths and its weaknesses. Call this "undermining" or give it whatever Newspeak labels you want: such a balanced approach is completely inimical to the indoctrination that takes place when viewpoints are censored so only one viewpoint will be heard."
Undermining will do nicely, thank you. Limiting biology class to evolution is no more indoctrination than it is to only teach that the holocaust occurred, or that there is no ether. Science does not have viewpoints. That is the realm of historians, philosophers, and novelists. Science has experiments, hypotheses, data, and theory. Viewpoints have no place there. "The earth is beautiful" is a viewpoint. "Killing is wrong" is a viewpoint. "The earth is a great deal older than 6,000 years" is not a viewpoint, it is a fact, as is "species evolve over time".
"prepare 'for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society": In Newman's Newspeak, the way to "prepare" students to participate in scientific discussions on this topic is apparently to censor scientific viewpoints that dissent from neo-Darwinism. But most folks, including most of U.S. Congress, tend to believe that preparing students to participate in public discussions about biological evolution dictates that they should learn about more than one scientific viewpoint on this topic"
Once again, Casey is guilty of pretending ID is a science. It's not, it's a pseudoscience with a socio/political agenda, and there is no reason students preparing for actual scientific discourse need bother with such things. See, the fact the DI desperately wants people to not understand is that scientific discourse is done in peer-reviewed scientific journals, not in popular books and live debates. Yet ID is absent from the top journals, with their supporters either reinterpreting other scientists' work to their benefit (and almost always in contradiction to what the authors say), or publishing contentless musings in journals of ill-repute.
In serious scientific discussion, there is no ID, and its not for lack of leaving the door open. They simply won't walk through it. It's the telltale sign of a scam. Students entering the scientific world will not miss it.
Luskin and crew have Newman's argument, which I'll close with, and it's really all that needs to be said. All the DI has is the sour grapes of every crank that loses in the marketplace of ideas and can't admit defeat.
"According to Professor Newman, the librarians rightly justified their censorship of Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box and Phillip Johnson's book Darwin on Trial from the school library as follows: "The books did not meet the usual selection criteria, which required that books 'support the curriculum, receive favorable reviews from professional journals, and be age-appropriate.' Noting that intelligent design theory had been 'repudiated by every leading scientific organization, including the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences,' the librarians determined that teaching intelligent design 'would be tantamount to teaching about the existence of Santa Claus.'"
Palin Debate Flow Chart
I watched the debate, and that's exactly what she did. The only thing they left out was her tendency to repeat her intial nonanswer whenever the moderator asked a followup question.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Facts, Speculation, and Candidate's Promises: Bozell Should Be Careful What He Wishes For
Brent Bozell has an interesting article where he defends some of the false claims made by the McCain campaign about Barack Obama's positions. Bozell promotes the idea that it is OK to speculate about a candidate's prospective behavior as an elected official, in a way that runs completely counter to that candidate's stated position, as long as there is historical precedent for said behavior from that candidate's party:
"'Correction' squads are insisting that John McCain can't say Barack Obama will raise taxes, no matter how much that announcing Democrats will raise taxes is like announcing the sun will rise.
In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle suggested Bill Clinton would raise taxes on the middle class. Quayle said in the vice-presidential debate that everyone making over $36,000 could face a tax hike. Media 'experts' accused the GOP of mangling 'facts.' President Clinton was elected -- and passed the largest tax increase in American history, right down to the middle class."
Thus, according to Bozell, it is OK for McCain to say Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, even though Obama says he won't, because Democrats have a history of doing exactly that.
"This is the sticky thing about campaign proposals. They are simply proposals. When a president is elected, the entire campaign manual can be thrown out the window. Predictions about what a politician will do are predictions, not facts. Obviously, some predictions can be wilder, like the suggestion that Ronald Reagan would start a massive war. (Liberals never tire of that one.) Predicting a massive tax hike under Democrats does not qualify as a wild prediction."
Interesting, and a position not without merit. However, I doubt Bozell would care for where this goes when it is turned around and aimed at his beloved Republicans. For since we have historical precedent \, we could, by Bozell's own reasoning, ignore John McCain's claim that he will cut spending, and instead say that he will, in fact, let spending continue to grow as it has, and run up huge budget deficits as a result. After all, that is what the last three Republican presidents did. Or to put it another way, announcing that Republicans will run up massive deficits is like announcing the sun will rise.
"'Correction' squads are insisting that John McCain can't say Barack Obama will raise taxes, no matter how much that announcing Democrats will raise taxes is like announcing the sun will rise.
In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle suggested Bill Clinton would raise taxes on the middle class. Quayle said in the vice-presidential debate that everyone making over $36,000 could face a tax hike. Media 'experts' accused the GOP of mangling 'facts.' President Clinton was elected -- and passed the largest tax increase in American history, right down to the middle class."
Thus, according to Bozell, it is OK for McCain to say Obama will raise taxes on the middle class, even though Obama says he won't, because Democrats have a history of doing exactly that.
"This is the sticky thing about campaign proposals. They are simply proposals. When a president is elected, the entire campaign manual can be thrown out the window. Predictions about what a politician will do are predictions, not facts. Obviously, some predictions can be wilder, like the suggestion that Ronald Reagan would start a massive war. (Liberals never tire of that one.) Predicting a massive tax hike under Democrats does not qualify as a wild prediction."
Interesting, and a position not without merit. However, I doubt Bozell would care for where this goes when it is turned around and aimed at his beloved Republicans. For since we have historical precedent \, we could, by Bozell's own reasoning, ignore John McCain's claim that he will cut spending, and instead say that he will, in fact, let spending continue to grow as it has, and run up huge budget deficits as a result. After all, that is what the last three Republican presidents did. Or to put it another way, announcing that Republicans will run up massive deficits is like announcing the sun will rise.
The Vice Presidential Debate
Well, we all waited with baited breath to see what would happen. Would Palin totally screw up? Would Biden come across as a pompous know-it-all? As with the presidential debate, my commentary is not about who won a technical debate on purely factual logical grounds. Political debates are about keeping the voters you have, swaying a few on the other side, and attracting as many of those key undecided voters as you can.
The debate was fairly uneventful. For the most part there were no major gaffes, but there were several minor ones. Throughout the debate, it was clear Palin was reciting from memorized scripts. Her delivery was a monotonous monotone, interspersed with seemingly random facial affectations (what was with all that winking?). The term "robodebator" kept springing to mind. There were exceptions to this, and they were always when she was discussing topics she had discussed before: same sex marriage, Wasilla, and oil exploration. There her delivery was much more natural, and believable. But on the followup questions from the moderator, it was clear she couldn't deal with any new information, and kept saying "Can I just go back to [previous topic]", which translated to my head as "I need to go back to my prepared script", because every time she said it she just repeated what she had said earlier.
However, the same sex marriage issue brought up the most serious comment Palin made: that she essentially agreed with the position of Biden and Obama, which is to have no legal differences between the way traditionally defined and same-sex couples are treated. This surely raised some eyebrows in the social conservative circles, and no doubt cost her votes. There are many one-issue voters with that as their issue.
Biden was no doubt told to be boring, and for the first 30 minutes or so he was exactly that. He used more specifics and facts and figures than she did, but there is little evidence that is helpful. The average voter can't follow all the figures, and when the candidates dispute each other it just becomes a he-said she-said. But it seemed he did come across as more knowledgeable, which was really his only goal.
Biden's first zinger came when he reminded the audience that McCain refused to commit to meeting with Spain. This is politically very interesting, since McCain actually has no problem meeting with Spain. But he flubbed the issue in a radio interview where he got confused about where Spain was, and whether it was a Latin American nation, which left his campaign with a choice of either admitting that he got confused, or accepting as his official position that he won't meet with Spain, an ally. Fearing fueling rumors of senility, they bit the bullet, and stood by the comment, which Obama and Biden have exploited masterfully as a supposed example of McCain's unwillingness to talk to foreign leaders.
Speaking of sitting with foreign leaders, Palin made the same exact "sitting across the table from Ahmadinejad" that was so ineffective for McCain. I could think of no reason why the McCain camp would choose to reuse a failed argument except one: it gave Palin something to spend time saying that wouldn't sound foolish.
Palin mentioned in her defense of Iraq that there have been many mistakes made during the war. I found this to be a curious, and potentially damaging admission. Expect Obama and Biden to pounce on this in future weeks.
I am curious to see if there is any more discussion of Palin's pronunciation of "nuclear" as "nukeelar", or of Iran and Iraq as "eye-ran" and "eye-raq". To educated ears, this sounds very hillbilly, but to the trailorpark undecideds, it just might ring the "she's like us" bells.
The first deer-in-the-headlights moment actually came at Biden's expense, as Palin caught him off guard with a swift rebuttal to Biden's claims about generals opinions of the situation in Afghanistan, and the effectiveness of an Iraq-style surge. Palin's answers had been so long prior to that, that Biden no doubt was still preparing his retort in his head when Palin abruptly stopped. Whether it was intentional strategy, or simply running out of anything else to say, it was a great move on Palin's part, and left Biden fumbling around to struggle for a retort.
Towards the end of the debate Palin appeared to tire a bit, as anyone having to rote memorize the amount of material she had to would, and the mistakes started coming. She said McCain knows how to win wars. This raised several eyebrows in our viewing group, since McCain fought in Viet Nam, was captured, and we lost that war. So what experience exactly is Palin referring to here?
Then she mentioned almost offhandedly that she thinks the powers of the VP should be expanded. This was a major political error. Dick Cheney's ratings are in the toilet, and the power given to the VP is hardly a hot topic around water coolers. There was no way Palin was going to come out of that exchange looking good. After Biden and the moderator pounced on this dubious position, Palin got flustered, and had her Katy Couric moment, doing her best impersonation of Kenny Rogers and The First Edition singing "Just Dropped in to see What Condition my Condition was in", as she cut loose with this beauty:
"We will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive, and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position."
That was her only real goofball moment, aside from a minor Freudian slip of saying John McCain had to "leave, er, lead...". In the end both candidates did what they went there to do: Biden was informed, but polite, Palin, stilted, but not entirely foolish. Personally I found Palin's folksyisms to be entirely contrived and unpersuasive, but I doubt the majority of viewers saw it that way.
Watching the post debate show on Fox produced a new low in biased, fake journalism. After listening to the talking heads grasp around for anything positive to say about Palins's speech, and finally agreeing that she was pretty, young, and seemed happy to be there (Why does that matter? Never mind, we have to say something!), they went to Frank Luntz and a group of supposedly undecided voters, who miraculously thought Palin won the debate by a tally of about 95%. Luntz then stuck his microphone under their mouths to get their reasons, and lo and behold, wouldn't you know it, they all recited all the Republican talking points: "she connected with middle America", "she had a positive view for America", "she's ready to lead", bla bla bla, with nary a repetitive phrase, nor a stutter, nor a single moment of one person talking over another, all inevitable when dealing with an actual, random group. Come on Fox, we know you rig the game, but try not to be so obvious about it.
Of course when the actual polls came out, they showed Biden winning handily by about a 2:1 or 3:1 margin. The most telling statistic, I found, was this one:
Who better understands the problems of people like me:
Biden: 50
Palin: 44
That's her bread and butter issue, relating to average people. If Biden beat her on that, game over.
The debate was fairly uneventful. For the most part there were no major gaffes, but there were several minor ones. Throughout the debate, it was clear Palin was reciting from memorized scripts. Her delivery was a monotonous monotone, interspersed with seemingly random facial affectations (what was with all that winking?). The term "robodebator" kept springing to mind. There were exceptions to this, and they were always when she was discussing topics she had discussed before: same sex marriage, Wasilla, and oil exploration. There her delivery was much more natural, and believable. But on the followup questions from the moderator, it was clear she couldn't deal with any new information, and kept saying "Can I just go back to [previous topic]", which translated to my head as "I need to go back to my prepared script", because every time she said it she just repeated what she had said earlier.
However, the same sex marriage issue brought up the most serious comment Palin made: that she essentially agreed with the position of Biden and Obama, which is to have no legal differences between the way traditionally defined and same-sex couples are treated. This surely raised some eyebrows in the social conservative circles, and no doubt cost her votes. There are many one-issue voters with that as their issue.
Biden was no doubt told to be boring, and for the first 30 minutes or so he was exactly that. He used more specifics and facts and figures than she did, but there is little evidence that is helpful. The average voter can't follow all the figures, and when the candidates dispute each other it just becomes a he-said she-said. But it seemed he did come across as more knowledgeable, which was really his only goal.
Biden's first zinger came when he reminded the audience that McCain refused to commit to meeting with Spain. This is politically very interesting, since McCain actually has no problem meeting with Spain. But he flubbed the issue in a radio interview where he got confused about where Spain was, and whether it was a Latin American nation, which left his campaign with a choice of either admitting that he got confused, or accepting as his official position that he won't meet with Spain, an ally. Fearing fueling rumors of senility, they bit the bullet, and stood by the comment, which Obama and Biden have exploited masterfully as a supposed example of McCain's unwillingness to talk to foreign leaders.
Speaking of sitting with foreign leaders, Palin made the same exact "sitting across the table from Ahmadinejad" that was so ineffective for McCain. I could think of no reason why the McCain camp would choose to reuse a failed argument except one: it gave Palin something to spend time saying that wouldn't sound foolish.
Palin mentioned in her defense of Iraq that there have been many mistakes made during the war. I found this to be a curious, and potentially damaging admission. Expect Obama and Biden to pounce on this in future weeks.
I am curious to see if there is any more discussion of Palin's pronunciation of "nuclear" as "nukeelar", or of Iran and Iraq as "eye-ran" and "eye-raq". To educated ears, this sounds very hillbilly, but to the trailorpark undecideds, it just might ring the "she's like us" bells.
The first deer-in-the-headlights moment actually came at Biden's expense, as Palin caught him off guard with a swift rebuttal to Biden's claims about generals opinions of the situation in Afghanistan, and the effectiveness of an Iraq-style surge. Palin's answers had been so long prior to that, that Biden no doubt was still preparing his retort in his head when Palin abruptly stopped. Whether it was intentional strategy, or simply running out of anything else to say, it was a great move on Palin's part, and left Biden fumbling around to struggle for a retort.
Towards the end of the debate Palin appeared to tire a bit, as anyone having to rote memorize the amount of material she had to would, and the mistakes started coming. She said McCain knows how to win wars. This raised several eyebrows in our viewing group, since McCain fought in Viet Nam, was captured, and we lost that war. So what experience exactly is Palin referring to here?
Then she mentioned almost offhandedly that she thinks the powers of the VP should be expanded. This was a major political error. Dick Cheney's ratings are in the toilet, and the power given to the VP is hardly a hot topic around water coolers. There was no way Palin was going to come out of that exchange looking good. After Biden and the moderator pounced on this dubious position, Palin got flustered, and had her Katy Couric moment, doing her best impersonation of Kenny Rogers and The First Edition singing "Just Dropped in to see What Condition my Condition was in", as she cut loose with this beauty:
"We will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive, and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position."
That was her only real goofball moment, aside from a minor Freudian slip of saying John McCain had to "leave, er, lead...". In the end both candidates did what they went there to do: Biden was informed, but polite, Palin, stilted, but not entirely foolish. Personally I found Palin's folksyisms to be entirely contrived and unpersuasive, but I doubt the majority of viewers saw it that way.
Watching the post debate show on Fox produced a new low in biased, fake journalism. After listening to the talking heads grasp around for anything positive to say about Palins's speech, and finally agreeing that she was pretty, young, and seemed happy to be there (Why does that matter? Never mind, we have to say something!), they went to Frank Luntz and a group of supposedly undecided voters, who miraculously thought Palin won the debate by a tally of about 95%. Luntz then stuck his microphone under their mouths to get their reasons, and lo and behold, wouldn't you know it, they all recited all the Republican talking points: "she connected with middle America", "she had a positive view for America", "she's ready to lead", bla bla bla, with nary a repetitive phrase, nor a stutter, nor a single moment of one person talking over another, all inevitable when dealing with an actual, random group. Come on Fox, we know you rig the game, but try not to be so obvious about it.
Of course when the actual polls came out, they showed Biden winning handily by about a 2:1 or 3:1 margin. The most telling statistic, I found, was this one:
Who better understands the problems of people like me:
Biden: 50
Palin: 44
That's her bread and butter issue, relating to average people. If Biden beat her on that, game over.
Luskin Weaves Fiction on the Texas Science Standards Debate
The Discovery Institute's Evolution News and Views website has an "About This Site" that remains the most laughable Freudian slip on the web:
"The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased."
Right on cue, Casey Luskin comes on to give us a sloppy, inaccurate, and overtly biased summation of the battle in Texas over the science requirements, and the push to remove the phony stealth-creationist "strengths and weaknesses" standard.
"To reasonable people, it is apparent that investigating the “strengths and weaknesses [of scientific theories] using scientific evidence and information” is exactly what scientists do all the time. Discovery Institute believes that if scientists can dispute the core claims of neo-Darwinism (as these scientists do), then students can learn about those views."
One must wonder what sort of standard the DI is using to conclude that students getting an introduction to biology are capable of examining scientific theories as professional scientists do. The latter group goes through many years of study, from high school, through college, and years of graduate courses, to get to the point that they are competent to examine and revise scientific theories. Most high school students don't know their ass from an allele, and are quite incapable of "deciding for themselves" what is and is not sound science. This of course, is part of the DI strategy: catching the kids when they are too inexperienced to be able to discern the difference between creationist shit and scientific shinola.
"Discovery Institute believes that a curriculum that aims to provide students with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories (rather than teaching an alternative theory, such as intelligent design) represents a common ground approach that all reasonable citizens can agree on. Texas Darwinists reject this approach because they will accept nothing less than the one-sided dogmatic presentation of the pro-Darwin-only position in public schools. Thus, the NCSE and other Darwinist groups have developed arguments to convince people that when science standards say teach the 'strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information,' they’re really conspiring to teach religion."
That is because, per the Wedge Document, that is exactly what they are trying to do. The head of the Texas Board of Education, Don McLeroy, has made this very clear. The so-called "weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" are nothing of the sort. They are merely rehashed and restated creationist arguments that have existed, and been soundly refuted, for decades. This is one reason these weaknesses are rarely expressed explicitly in these discussions, for they would stand out immediately for what they are. Texas scientists (there is no such thing as a "Darwinist". That is merely a pejorative label invented to paint science with a religious brush) and science supporters believe that an education, not just in science, but in all subjects, should present students with the best information available, and should not waste time with material that has been nearly uniformly rejected by our highest academic institutions. Ether, N-rays, the planet Vulcan, and creationism (including its neutered variant intelligent design) do not belong in classrooms.
The DI is using a common tactic of appealing to our sense of fair play and academic freedom to confuse the issue. Yes, working scientists need such freedom to entertain whatever ideas they conceive, and should study those strengths and weaknesses. But that is not what students in secondary education should be doing. They are there to learn the basics. The in depth analysis will come later when they are adequately prepared to deal with the information.
"For example, a recent NCSE press release states that learning about the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinism will 'dilute the treatment of evolution.' Not only is this a false claim, but it isn't even an argument: this merely shows that what the NCSE wants is the dogmatic presentation of only the pro-Darwin viewpoint in schools. For the NCSE, allowing students to learn about scientific critiques of neo-Darwinism will 'dilute' their dogmatic approach."
This has nothing to do with dogmatism, and everything to do with limited class time, and appropriate treatment of the topic. Every moment spent on the DI's bogus weaknesses is that much less time spent on the legitimate science. It is a case of simple straightforward math, which makes it a true claim, and very solid argument.
"Likewise, the NCSE quotes Texas Darwinists saying that teaching the strengths and weaknesses will “damage and corrupt science textbooks.” Again, such rhetoric is not an argument: it merely demonstrates Darwinists think it will “damage and corrupt” education if students learn that neo-Darwinism might have scientific flaws because in their dogmatic view, neo-Darwinian evolution has nothing that rises to the level of a weakness. Such authoritarian statements have no place in science, and they serve to indoctrinate students rather than teach students how to think critically and skeptically—like scientists."
Again, not only is this in fact an argument, but it is a good one. Exposing students who don't yet grasp the basics of biology to these bogus "weaknesses" will serve only to confuse them. Any nonscience put into science textbooks damages and corrupts them, and the education process, and all of the so-called "weaknesses" are nonscientific. That is not dogmatism, but the consensus opinion of 99% of the scientists in the relevant fields, including some, like mathematics and physics, for which there is no reason to expect any sort of pro-Darwin bias. Mathematicians and physicists are smarter than biologists, just ask them. If they saw something wrong with evolutionary science, no power in the world could shut them up about it.
And again we see Luskin's equivocation between the standards of good scientists and the standards of good science teaching. Authoritarian statements are part and parcel of an education, which at its core is indoctrination of a sort. It is with working scientists where skepticism is appropriate, backed as it would be by informed opinion from years of study, rather than the ignorance we'd see from children in a classroom who haven't even learned the basics yet. Luskin and the DI would have that ignorance remain permanent.
"The misreporting of the evolution issue is one key reason for this site. Unfortunately, much of the news coverage has been sloppy, inaccurate, and in some cases, overtly biased."
Right on cue, Casey Luskin comes on to give us a sloppy, inaccurate, and overtly biased summation of the battle in Texas over the science requirements, and the push to remove the phony stealth-creationist "strengths and weaknesses" standard.
"To reasonable people, it is apparent that investigating the “strengths and weaknesses [of scientific theories] using scientific evidence and information” is exactly what scientists do all the time. Discovery Institute believes that if scientists can dispute the core claims of neo-Darwinism (as these scientists do), then students can learn about those views."
One must wonder what sort of standard the DI is using to conclude that students getting an introduction to biology are capable of examining scientific theories as professional scientists do. The latter group goes through many years of study, from high school, through college, and years of graduate courses, to get to the point that they are competent to examine and revise scientific theories. Most high school students don't know their ass from an allele, and are quite incapable of "deciding for themselves" what is and is not sound science. This of course, is part of the DI strategy: catching the kids when they are too inexperienced to be able to discern the difference between creationist shit and scientific shinola.
"Discovery Institute believes that a curriculum that aims to provide students with an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinian and chemical evolutionary theories (rather than teaching an alternative theory, such as intelligent design) represents a common ground approach that all reasonable citizens can agree on. Texas Darwinists reject this approach because they will accept nothing less than the one-sided dogmatic presentation of the pro-Darwin-only position in public schools. Thus, the NCSE and other Darwinist groups have developed arguments to convince people that when science standards say teach the 'strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information,' they’re really conspiring to teach religion."
That is because, per the Wedge Document, that is exactly what they are trying to do. The head of the Texas Board of Education, Don McLeroy, has made this very clear. The so-called "weaknesses using scientific evidence and information" are nothing of the sort. They are merely rehashed and restated creationist arguments that have existed, and been soundly refuted, for decades. This is one reason these weaknesses are rarely expressed explicitly in these discussions, for they would stand out immediately for what they are. Texas scientists (there is no such thing as a "Darwinist". That is merely a pejorative label invented to paint science with a religious brush) and science supporters believe that an education, not just in science, but in all subjects, should present students with the best information available, and should not waste time with material that has been nearly uniformly rejected by our highest academic institutions. Ether, N-rays, the planet Vulcan, and creationism (including its neutered variant intelligent design) do not belong in classrooms.
The DI is using a common tactic of appealing to our sense of fair play and academic freedom to confuse the issue. Yes, working scientists need such freedom to entertain whatever ideas they conceive, and should study those strengths and weaknesses. But that is not what students in secondary education should be doing. They are there to learn the basics. The in depth analysis will come later when they are adequately prepared to deal with the information.
"For example, a recent NCSE press release states that learning about the strengths and weaknesses of neo-Darwinism will 'dilute the treatment of evolution.' Not only is this a false claim, but it isn't even an argument: this merely shows that what the NCSE wants is the dogmatic presentation of only the pro-Darwin viewpoint in schools. For the NCSE, allowing students to learn about scientific critiques of neo-Darwinism will 'dilute' their dogmatic approach."
This has nothing to do with dogmatism, and everything to do with limited class time, and appropriate treatment of the topic. Every moment spent on the DI's bogus weaknesses is that much less time spent on the legitimate science. It is a case of simple straightforward math, which makes it a true claim, and very solid argument.
"Likewise, the NCSE quotes Texas Darwinists saying that teaching the strengths and weaknesses will “damage and corrupt science textbooks.” Again, such rhetoric is not an argument: it merely demonstrates Darwinists think it will “damage and corrupt” education if students learn that neo-Darwinism might have scientific flaws because in their dogmatic view, neo-Darwinian evolution has nothing that rises to the level of a weakness. Such authoritarian statements have no place in science, and they serve to indoctrinate students rather than teach students how to think critically and skeptically—like scientists."
Again, not only is this in fact an argument, but it is a good one. Exposing students who don't yet grasp the basics of biology to these bogus "weaknesses" will serve only to confuse them. Any nonscience put into science textbooks damages and corrupts them, and the education process, and all of the so-called "weaknesses" are nonscientific. That is not dogmatism, but the consensus opinion of 99% of the scientists in the relevant fields, including some, like mathematics and physics, for which there is no reason to expect any sort of pro-Darwin bias. Mathematicians and physicists are smarter than biologists, just ask them. If they saw something wrong with evolutionary science, no power in the world could shut them up about it.
And again we see Luskin's equivocation between the standards of good scientists and the standards of good science teaching. Authoritarian statements are part and parcel of an education, which at its core is indoctrination of a sort. It is with working scientists where skepticism is appropriate, backed as it would be by informed opinion from years of study, rather than the ignorance we'd see from children in a classroom who haven't even learned the basics yet. Luskin and the DI would have that ignorance remain permanent.
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