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— Metapills (@metapills) April 21, 2024

Mark Steyn: Krill or Be Krilled

 Professor Lloyd Peck of the British Antarctic Survey is worried about – stop me if you've heard this one before – global warming. For this year's Royal Institution Christmas lecture, he'll be warning that the merest smidgeonette of an increase in temperature in the south polar seabed will lead to the loss of a zillion species. As the oceans warm, the ice shelves that extend from the polar depths into the sub-Antarctic light will shrink, and the thick mats of algae on their underside will vanish, and the billions of tiny krill that feed on them will perish, and pretty soon, up at the scenic end of the food chain, all those cute seals and penguins and whales will be gone.

And all this will happen if the temperature goes up two degrees, from butt-numbingly freezing to marginally less butt-numbingly freezing. "It is going to be really unpleasant," Prof Peck tells the Guardian. "We are going to lose things – we just don't know how much."

Each to his own. I like whales. I spend a lot of time on the north shore of the St Lawrence and around the Saguenay fjord in Quebec, and it would certainly be a duller place without the whales gaily plashing hither and yon. But what I find curious about this sort of thing is that Prof Peck is supposed to be a scientist and the newspaper reporting his views is famously rational. A month ago, for example, it was mocking the kind of folks who'd re-elected George W Bush – men of faith, not science, many of them from jurisdictions where the school boards are packed with creationists who look askance at Darwin, evolution and the like.

Evolution posits that species will come and go: some die out, some survive and evolve. I don't regard myself as anything terribly special but in a typical year I'm exposed to temperatures from around 98 degrees to 45 below freezing, in the lower part of which range I evolve into my long underwear.

Maybe if the Antarctic food chain is incapable of evolving to cope with a two-degree increase in temperature across many decades, it isn't meant to survive. Science tells us that extinction is a fact of life, and that nature is never still: long before the Industrial Revolution, long before the first lardbuttus Americanus got into his primitive four-miles-per-gallon SUV to head to the mall for the world's first cheeseburger, there were dramatic fluctuations in climate wiping out a ton of stuff. Yet scientists and their cheerleaders, the hyper-rationalists at the progressive newspapers, have signed on to the idea that evolution should cease and the world should be frozen – literally, in the case of Prof Peck and his beloved algae – in some unchanging Edenic state.

Well, good luck to him. If I see a chap with a "Save the algae" collecting box, I'm happy to chip in a fiver. But, at the same time as the Royal Institute and the Guardian and all other bien pensants are in a mass panic at the thought of the krill having to adjust his way of life, they're positively insouciant about massive changes to our own habitat. You like fox-hunting? You're not entirely cool with gay marriage? You prefer English common law to this new Euro-pudding legal code? Tough, shrugs the Guardian.

Stuff happens, things change, adapt or die. Perhaps he'll give us some hard numbers in his lecture but, insofar as I can tell, Prof Peck's doomsday scenario depends on a lot of "ifs". In the course of several decades, the temperature might indeed increase sufficiently, and that might reduce the algae, and that might diminish by several billion the number of krill, and that might impact the lifestyle of the Antarctic penguin by, oh, 2050, 2060.

But, on the other hand, somebody might have invented a thing the size of the Palm Pilot you staple to the seabed that automatically lowers the temperature by two degrees and we'll have wall-to-wall algae. Who can say?

What we do know for certain is that the krill's chances of survival are a lot greater than, say, those of the Italians, or the Germans, or the Japanese, Russians, Greeks and Spaniards, all of whom will be in steep population decline long before the Antarctic krill. By 2025, one in every three Japanese will be over 65, and that statistic depends on the two out of three who aren't over 65 sticking around to pay the tax bills required to support the biggest geriatric population in history.

Does the impending extinction of the Japanese and Russians not distress anyone? How about the Italians? They gave us the Sistine Chapel, the Mona Lisa, Gina Lollobrigida, linguine, tagliatelle, fusilli. If you're in your scuba suit down on the ice shelf dining with the krill and you say you'd like your algae al dente in a carbonara sauce, they'll give you a blank look. Billions of years on Earth and all they've got is the same set menu they started out with. But try and rouse the progressive mind to a "Save the Italians" campaign and you'll get nowhere. Luigi isn't as important as algae, even though he, too, is a victim of profound environmental changes: globally warmed by Euro-welfare, he no longer feels the need to breed.

And, if he doesn't care if he survives, why should the penguins and the krill feel any differently? Given the choice between the krill's hypothetically impending extinction and their own impending extinction already under way, Europeans would apparently rather fret about the denizens of the deep. Even Chesterton, who observed that once man has ceased to believe in God he'll believe in anything, might have marvelled at how swift the decay from post-Christian to post-evolutionary. Like the old song says: What's it all about – algae?

~from The Daily Telegraph, December 14th 2004

Hitler Vindicated After Historians Discover His Ideas Came From Darwin

 

WORLD—Hitler has been vindicated of all his horrific wrongdoings after several historians discovered he simply borrowed most of his ideas from the celebrated scientist Charles Darwin.

"Wow-- we had no idea!" said Dr. Samuel Müller, a biology professor at Harvard. "As it turns out, Hitler was just following the scientific consensus around eugenics that was shared by every respected scientific institution at the time! He was just following the science! What a great guy!" 

According to experts, the seeds of the eugenics movement were planted by Darwin himself in his book The Descent of Man. Darwin's own son Leonard Darwin, and his cousin Francis Galton went on to found the eugenics movement. The goal of the movement was "self-directed evolution," improving mankind by weeding out those deemed genetically "unfit." Experts say that Hitler latched on to this movement, which resulted in the murder of millions of innocent people. 

"As it turns out," said Müller, "Hitler's mission of racial purity was just a logical result of Darwinian theory. And here we thought he was just a deranged homicidal maniac!"

Scientists have conceded, however, that Hitler's methods were problematic, as committing genocide against an entire people group is generally frowned upon these days. Planned Parenthood is said to be carrying on the eugenics mission but in a much tidier and "less problematic" way.

"Thank goodness," said Müller.

Darwinism is dead

Free Markets and Evolution

Worth a read.

Of course it isn’t just free markets or free speech they have problems with. They actually have problems with lots of science and even with the “evolution” that they claim to believe in. Progressive ideology claims that we are all alike in terms of potential and that the difference in outcomes is purely due to racism/sexism/patriarchal privilege etc. This is, so course, completely nuts as any unbiased observer of humanity must notice. While it is true that, say, some women are physically stronger/faster than nearly all men there is no point where more women are stronger/faster than men.

How not to get an “A”

Warning: very strong languare and physical violence.

Associate Professor Stephen M. Kajiura was reviewing with his evolution class in GS 120 for a midterm when FAU student Jonatha Carr interrupted him: “How does evolution kill black people?” she asked. Kajiura attempted to explain that evolution doesn’t kill anyone.

And then, Carr became violent.

Scientific Method and Intelligent Design

Some worthwhile thoughts on a tough subject:

Some readers seem to assume I want to argue in favor of intelligent design, and have sent me various arguments against the hypotheses. I can't imagine where they get the notion that I have any such need -- and in particular that I have any need of arguments that are made daily nearly everywhere. I'm familiar with them.

I have neither defended nor tried to refute the intelligent design hypothesis. What I have said is that if the intelligent design hypothesis generates falsifiable theorems then it is at least potentially useful. In particular, some intelligent design theorists have postulated that the Darwinians cannot explain how certain structures of "irreducible complexity" were able to evolve through natural selection: what were the steps, and how each step did not add a reproductive burden (and ideally would convey a reproductive advantage).

In some cases these challenges have resulted in rather detailed theories from the Darwinians. To the extent that these generate falsifiable hypotheses, this is all to the good, increasing our understanding of how natural selection works; and to the extent that these intelligent design assertions have shown the Darwinians that they don't understand how some features might evolve, that is all to the good as well. It never harms to know that there are limits to the utility of current theories.

Now I am aware that there are some "intelligent design theorists" who seem to be naive creationists incapable of following a scientific argument or appreciating evidence. What I don't know is how that is a refutation of intelligent design? I have heard high school physics teachers try to explain the basic quantum two-slit theory in terms that ought to have their students rolling on the floor. So what? Niven long ago observed that there is no cause so noble that it will not be espoused by fuggheads -- and that the fuggheads will often get all the press, making the cause look as if only fuggheads are in favor of it.

As to teaching "intelligent design" in schools, it doesn't happen often. The real question is who shall decide? Local school boards, or experts? And be very careful how you answer, because there are a number of propositions of far greater practical import, such as IQ, and phonics vs. "whole word" methods of teaching children to read English, and such like that have been imposed from above by the experts on the grounds that local bumpkins shouldn't have control since we, the experts, know what the right answers are; and we don't want public money wasted on teaching nonsense like phonics, and having children learn the addition and multiplication tables when every expert knows that The New Math, or Fuzzy Math, is a far, far better way to teach arithmetic... And that it is far more important to have diversity in history textbooks than to have very much about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Etc.

So long as the idea of scientific method -- the generation and testing of falsifiable hypotheses -- is shown, I don't have any great worries that bright kids won't figure out their own answers to matters like intelligent design; and I don't really care if my auto mechanic believes in his heart of hearts that he was divinely created and endowed by his creators with certain inalienable rights as opposed to his having evolved from bonobos without attention from his creator. I do worry that he knows how to read the output of the computer test equipment, and that he can figure out what the funny squeak is.

...

What I don't understand is the passion on suppressing intelligent design in the name of science. Some readers are convinced that the end of the Republic is at hand if one school district, anywhere, decides to mandate intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian Evolution. Given that the entire state of California forbade the teaching of English as a phonetic language for more than a dozen years, and still has very few teachers who understand how to teach that, which is the greater danger?

Mandating the "correct" position and requiring local schools to adopt that is a more dangerous principle than teaching an alternative to Darwin, without regard to whether Darwin is "really true" and belief in Darwin is so fragile that teaching an alternative would undermine belief in Natural Selection. I am not convinced that there is a school district that would teach "flat earth" as an alternative to the conventional wisdom, but if there were, I do not think the republic would fall if that were allowed. There would be ridicule and merriment and mirth, but I doubt the consequences would be much greater than that.

I suspect that too many readers have far too much confidence in our ability to shape beliefs in the public schools -- and too little in the education bureaucracy's abilities to undermine all learning in those schools.

Expelled: Some Links to the Movie

From LIBERTAS:

Even though Ben Stein’s Expelled was released on over a thousand screens and Morgan Spurlock’s Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? was released on 102, Expelled still managed to pull in three-times the business in the all-important per theatre average and come in at #8 overall.

With some entertaining and informative commentary. Scroll down.

From Hot Air by Ed Morrissey

But in a way, this is all secondary to the real issue of the film: academic intolerance. The debate over ID vs Darwinism sets the table for a truly disturbing look at academia. Science should be about the free debate and research of ideas and hypotheses for duplicable results and provable theorems. However, as the examples Stein and the film provide amply show, the Darwinist academic establishment will brook no dissent from the orthodoxy — and scientists have to be shown with hidden faces to speak to the issue for the film.

Amusingly, Stein asks people how the first cell came to be. None of the scientists could give him a straight answer. Dawkins himself admits he doesn’t know and that no one else does, either — but postulates that aliens could have brought life to this planet, and then postulates that another alien civilization could have brought life to that planet, and so on. He then concedes that one entity could have been the original source … but insists that entity could not possibly have been God. For this he gives absolutely no evidence at all, relegating it as a belief system somewhat akin to Scientology.

From Comic Log we get an "open mind?????" Not having seen the movie he simply wonders how wacky it is!

I haven't seen "Expelled" yet, so it's hard for me to judge how wacky the movie really is, but plenty of other folks are already weighing in.

Yes, that's the one, scientific way to look at controversial ideas. By the way, Richard Dawkins - atheist supreme -

Richard Dawkins, in the end of the movie, was given an uninterrupted period of time to hang himself was an interesting section. Without prompting or twisting, Dawkins said that he believes an INTELLIGENT race from another planet may have started a carefully DESIGNED cell on the earth that evolved into all life.

Dawkins will not believe in God but does believe in little green men.

Ben Stein on Glenn Beck's show about Intelligent Design.


Bill O'Reilly and Ben Stein on Intelligent Design