I think I’ve said in this space before that my favorite Linda Seebach columns aren’t those on the topic of evolution. I don’t keep statistics–I’m a Linda fan, not a Linda obsessor–but I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of her columns are on human origins or some closely related scientific topic. As an admiring weekly reader, I can say confidently that evolution is no sterile scientific proposition to Seebach; rather, it animates her in a way out of proportion with the existential impact of your normal, run-of-the-mill scientific explanation of the phenomena. And I understand; I get jazzed about this kind of thing too, albeit from a slightly different perspective.

Two weeks ago her column covered “Steve’s List,” a project of the National Center for Science Education. Linda explains:

People who oppose the teaching of evolution in the schools or who want nonscientific theories such as “intelligent design” to be part of the curriculum are fond of claiming that evolution is “a theory in crisis” and that “growing numbers” of scientists now dispute it.

As purported evidence for their claim, they compile lists of scientists - well, some of them are scientists - who agree with them. They are very short lists, compared with the hundreds of thousands of scientists who understand that evolution by natural selection is the foundation of all the biological sciences, but how to make that point to, say, members of state school boards who are neither scientists themselves nor well prepared to evaluate competing claims about what is science and what is not?

Evolutionary biologists’ light-hearted answer: Project Steve.

The National Center for Science Education, whose motto is, “Defending the teaching of evolution in the public schools” (at ncseweb.org - click on “resources” and then the Project Steve box on the right) came up with the idea of parodying the intelligent design lists by making their own list of biologists willing to sign a strong statement in support of evolution, with the only requirement being that their names had to be Steve, or some variation of it (Stephanie or Stefan, for instance).

I believe opponents of evolution should begin by getting one thing out of the way: this is really funny. I won’t explore the reasons here, but jokes have always been funnier when they have the name “Steve” in them. The tribute to late evolutionist Steven Jay Gould is an obvious enough reason for the NCSE to pick the name, but even so, John’s List would have been less funny. Bob’s List would have a shot at the title, but David’s List would have been a complete dud. (Tim’s List? I mean, please.) “Steve’s List” has some serious panache–this is not to be denied. It’s just a good, goofy joke.

And a joke is all the NCSE seems to intend. They claim valiantly to have resisted pressure to generate a list of evolution-affirming scientists in the past, because they “did not wish to mislead the public into thinking that scientific issues are decided by who has the longer list of scientists.” Certainly we appreciate their kind stewardship of the public trust, but in this case Seebach and the list’s creator, Matt Inlay (a contributor at Panda’s Thumb, whose many capable authors will now descend upon me for having the temerity to link critically to them) seem to be taking things an epistemological step further.

Remember that the List was intended as a parody of the practice of my own cobelligerents. As a P.R. measure, Intelligent Design advocates (and perhaps young earth creationists, whom I really don’t keep up with) like to make lists of scientists who dissent from the current scientific orthodoxy by denying that natural mechanisms are sufficient to explain the origin and diversity of life on earth. The purpose of the parody, Linda says, “is to get people, including journalists, to ask, when they see one of the intelligent design lists, ‘How many Steves are on it?’ The answer highlights just how tiny a percentage of scientists the intelligent design lists represent.” The current NCSE Steve count is 435, including Stefans (less funny that Steve) and Stephanies (not funny at all, but a very nice name). Matt Inlay says I.D. has nine Steves to its credit, none a biologist. Linda quotes him:

If I were a parent whose children were entering high school, and I kept reading in the news that many scientists thought evolution was a theory in crisis and that students were being prevented from hearing about this controversy by dogmatic Darwinists, I would want to know that in reality, 99 percent of scientists support evolution, and only an insignificant minority question it.

It’s entirely possible that Dr. Inlay will end up reading this, so let me say now that I’m quite sure he doesn’t really believe that scientific proof consists in nose-counting. If questioned, I’m certain he would deny that he meant that, and would clarify his words to remove any doubt. However this quote, and the tenor of the piece in the Rocky Mountain News, very much suggest a different approach. It is very simple: more respectable scientists, including an especially damning supermajority of biologists, are Darwinists. Go away, I.D.

Now, busy non-experts always defer to authority to answer hard questions, and if the experts disagree, nothing could be more American than letting the majority decide what is true. In all honesty, that horrible procedure is sometimes all we have time for, and maybe this is why Dr. Inlay invoked the scenario of parents making educational decisions for their teen-agers. Harried, overcommitted, 40-something parents can hardly be expected to be au courrant of very much scientific literature. Perhaps we can accept this, being comforted that in the halls of academia ideas can be hashed out without regard for who holds the power and what idea is in favor in the majority. Of course we will be told that these decisions are made based on purely rational assessments of the evidence according to the canons of a metaphysically neutral thing called Science, but hey. That’s why I don’t have a Panda’s Thumb tee-shirt and bumper sticker.¹ (Note to Panda’s Thumb guys: open Café Press shop now. Subtract hosting costs from the earnings, then divide up the profit using a formula that accounts for number of posted words, number of trackbacks, and number of comments generated. It’ll be solid gold.)

More to the point, Intelligent Design advocates are painfully well aware that their views are not in the majority in scientific academia. Not much of a point is proved by showing that the overwhelming majority of scientists are Darwinists. We know this. We have to contend with some of the most brilliant minds in the world who are deeply committed to the system we are trying to unseat. We do not shrink from the challenge, but we don’t exactly find it necessary to remind ourselves that we face it. Even small-time bloggers have to consider this when [respectfully] sticking their finger in the eye of respected editorialists and well-read public advocates of Darwinism: breathe, and a bunch of smart people are going to jump on you.

Intelligent discussions of origins have become fundamentally discussions of epistemology and metaphysics, not primarily of observations, and certainly not of nose-counting. They ought not focus all their energy on the evidence itself, about whose basic grammar there seems to be substantial agreement. They ought not focus on how many people share naturalistic or theistic conclusions, since nobody in the discussion thinks (out loud, in public) that the mob should rule. After all if, as Design theorists ought to admit, Darwinism is a justifiable conclusion proceeding from Naturalistic assumptions, then why shouldn’t most biologists be Darwinists, if in fact most Darwinists are Naturalists? There seems to be little to learn from looking at the pie chart.

Hence the commonly tolerated, time-saving argument from authority is not really all that helpful here. All of the non-expert parents of public school students might normally want to defer to the Academy on this, but to whom are they deferring? To brilliant subject matter experts trained to make meticulous observations of obscure phenomena, and to make careful inferences from their observations in the legitimate pursuit of knowledge? Yes. To inveterate naturalists, opposed with occasionally religious fervor and often snide disdain to the introduction of intelligent agency into the universe of scientific discourse? Again, all too often, yes. Ask an atheist biologist (or an evangelical biologist laboring under the self-imposed constraints of methodological naturalism–if you can find an evangelical biologist), and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get an answer consistent with the metaphysical or epistemological commitments she’s made. And that scientist is almost certainly not a specialist in these matters. A smart person, certainly; a well-read person, maybe. But we do not leave it to biologists to tell us what is ultimately real or how we can know things.

How many Steves would agree? I have no idea, and I won’t be compiling a list anytime soon.

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¹I would, of course, drink from a Pharyngula Nalgene. That would be totally different.

It smells fresh, anyway. In a certain rather earthy sense:

A radical translation of the New Testament released with the personal backing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and aimed at the those disillusioned with institutional religion, has been met by the mainstream media with a focus on a small number of biblical passages that relate to sexual ethics.

The ONE translation aims at a “new, fresh and adventurous” translation of the early Christian scriptures. It is designed both for mature Christians and for those who have limited experience of traditional Christianity or “may have found it a barrier to an appreciation of Jesus”.

That’s good, because Jesus was pretty into making sure there were no barriers to accepting him.

I’m not going to gripe about the cutesy nicknames: “Rocky” for Peter, “Maggie” for Mary Magdalene, “Barry” for Barabbas. (Oh, except the last one is anti-semitic.) Low-grade dynamic-equivalencies-cum-paraphrases have been doing this for a while. It’s insulting and doesn’t help modern readers fuse cultural horizons with ancient writers¹, but whatever. We can still be friends.

The complete reinvention of meaning is another matter. This is linguistic madness, understandable only when considered as a coup perpetrated upon the Text by a mad junta bent on justifying their modernist metaphysics and postmodern sexual ethics. Attend:

1 Cor 7:8-9 is now “If you know you have strong needs, get yourself a partner. Better than being frustrated.” Yes, that’s pretty much the opposite of the original meaning, but I think we should be able to put a minus sign in front of any numbers we don’t want to be positive. Especially if negating them means we can attend more immediately to our sexual appetites. I mean, hey, why not?

Mark 1:10-11 becomes, “As he was climbing up the bank again, the sun shone through a gap in the clouds. At the same time a pigeon flew down and perched on him. Jesus took this as a sign that God’s spirit was with him. A voice from overhead was heard saying, ‘That’s my boy! You’re doing fine!’” The Spirit didn’t descend in the form of a dove, because that’s silly; Jesus just took this one pigeon as a sign that non-Trinitarian god (lowercase spirit, mind you) was present with him in some indistinct but otherwise comforting way.

Smell the freshness of the scholarship yet? Maybe one more good, hard sniff will do it. The crack biblical scholars at WorldNet Daily were able to point out the following:

In keeping with the times, translator Henson deftly translates “demon possession” as “mental illness” and “Son of Man,” the expression Jesus frequently used to describe himself, as “the Complete Person.” In addition, parables are rendered as “riddles,” baptize is to “dip” in water, salvation becomes “healing” or “completeness” and Heaven becomes “the world beyond time and space.”

Have a hard time pinning all that down phisophically? Think of a 19^th-cenutry Oprah, and you’re making progress. Let me go out on a limb and predict that this publication will be wildly successful among a numerically moribund group of nominal Christians, and will bear precisely zero spiritual fruit anywhere.

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¹Of course the possibility of this fusing will be deined by the authors and backers of this translation paraphrase, at least by those of them smart enough to understand their own fundamental theorems.

You’ve probably read it, or at least read of it, but in the off chance you haven’t, let me direct you there now. It’s long–4,300 words long–but well worth it. A snippet:

Moore has announced that he won’t even appear on TV shows where he might face hostile questioning. I notice from the New York Times of June 20 that he has pompously established a rapid response team, and a fact-checking staff, and some tough lawyers, to bulwark himself against attack. He’ll sue, Moore says, if anyone insults him or his pet. Some right-wing hack groups, I gather, are planning to bring pressure on their local movie theaters to drop the film. How dumb or thuggish do you have to be in order to counter one form of stupidity and cowardice with another? By all means go and see this terrible film, and take your friends, and if the fools in the audience strike up one cry, in favor of surrender or defeat, feel free to join in the conversation.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that “fact-checking” is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers–get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let’s redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let’s see what you’re made of.

Some people soothingly say that one should relax about all this. It’s only a movie. No biggie. It’s no worse than the tomfoolery of Oliver Stone. It’s kick-ass entertainment. It might even help get out “the youth vote.” Yeah, well, I have myself written and presented about a dozen low-budget made-for-TV documentaries, on subjects as various as Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton and the Cyprus crisis, and I also helped produce a slightly more polished one on Henry Kissinger that was shown in movie theaters. So I know, thanks, before you tell me, that a documentary must have a “POV” or point of view and that it must also impose a narrative line. But if you leave out absolutely everything that might give your “narrative” a problem and throw in any old rubbish that might support it, and you don’t even care that one bit of that rubbish flatly contradicts the next bit, and you give no chance to those who might differ, then you have betrayed your craft.

…

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

I don’t exactly memorize every word Hitch writes, but this at least needs to be read.

Monday night was way to hectic to indulge the tradition of the Hydrometer Photo, but I did get the ESB into bottles. Final gravity was about 1.010, and it is a beautiful amber brown, and it has a very hoppy finish. All is well.

And as an aside, I would like to make it clear that this sort of thing only happens to home distillers, not home brewers. The headline is misleading; it should say “moonshine,” which is slightly colloquial but far more accurate. And far more dangerous to boot.

Last night the family watched Eloist, an enjoyable children’s film about the hilarious hijinks of a precocious, hyper-privileged, blonde-haired, six-year-old Hebrew redactor who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Based on a children’s book by the same name, I think. Considering the all-too-common dual foibles of children’s movies (annoying, saccharine sweetness or snotty, ill-mannered protagonists), what I saw of this movie was really pretty cute. I wouldn’t mind it if it found its way into the home library, as jaundiced an eye as I typically turn towards redaction-critical methods in biblical studies.

NOTE: My wife has just informed me that the name of the movie was in fact Eloise, and it was about the the hilarious hijinks of a precocious, hyper-privileged, blonde-haired, six-year-old little girl who lives in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. I was wondering why the blonde hair. It didn’t exactly make sense.

If you get the joke, and you don’t post under the name pentamom or Adeodatus, you really should stand and be recognized. This is high-brow punnery, man.

If only there were a good pun for Pretty In Pink. Surely the second worst film of the entire 1980s Molly Ringwald corpus, it is at least redeemed by its fairly cool soundtrack and the nontrivial doses of nostalgia it will give a couple of young gen-Xers who started dating just a couple of years after it was released. We watched it together Sunday night, in a pleasant break from homework and other evening responsibilities.

To what enduring cultural artifact in the Ringwald corpus does it take a backseat, you ask? The 1988 atrocity For Keeps, of course, co-starring the inestimable–and I mean that more or less literally–Randall Batinkoff. To be fair, I’ve never seen Tempest, but against For Keeps, I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

My Zymurgy Blogging has been lax. Two weeks ago we had a very enjoyable dinner out with our most excellent neighbors, after which we retired to Berglund Manor to brew beer. We made a raspberry honey wheat, which is due to be bottled on Monday. (Technically, it’s just honey wheat at this point, since the raspberry extract is added just prior to bottling, but the goal is well enough in sight.)

I’ve taken a fair amount of slack for brewing such a girly beer, so I decided my next one had better be a bit more manful. Well, there’s now a company picnic scheduled for July 3, which should be just enough time for this glorious ESB (Extra Special Bitter) to finish out and find its way into bottles, thus vindicating my manhood:

The hydrometer shows 1.042. Compensated for temperature (it was 75°F), this is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.046.

And hey, if the fruit beer is a bit too…fruity, I’ve got a couple of customers lined up who insist they won’t complain.

NOTE TO ATF: When I say “customers,” I mean “wives of friends who will take homemade beer from me for free.”

Why so much brewing? Well, good question. First of all, it’s a bit of a pain to brew in the heat of the summer. Even with air conditioning, the temperature is still usually a bit too warm in the house to make it convenient, so I’d like to get the summer’s needs met before it gets too warm. Second, with the recent addition of the dedicated beer fridge (thank you, Jim), I’d like to accumulate a good variety in storage, so guests will always have their options open. A burst of brewing activity is required to prime the pump, as it were.

Surely not news to you as you read this, and I will not compose any lengthy euology for him, but it cannot go un-noted. My son recognizes the name as that of the greatest president of his Dad’s lifetime. I will leave it at that.

The incredibly modest TimBerglund.com reader who sent me this material actually wishes to remain anonymous! He is to be commended for wanting to inform the masses while arrogating no credit to himself. You rock, Todd!

I never realized that so much theology would fit on a single sheet of A4 paper–and a blank one at that! If you can follow the whole thing (I couldn’t; I’m kind of busy these days), I’m sure you’ll find it as life-changing as I probably would have if I did. I mean, check this out:

Let H and W represent the height and width of the sheet in mm; and let P and Q represent H/3 and W/2, respectively. We then have: H = 297, P = 99, W = 210 and Q = 105. The table lists the values of words 2 to 8, Genesis 1, together with the corresponding A4 components which yield a length in mm one more, in each case….Clearly, there is a principle at work here which calls for further investigation.

Yes, yes there is…but it’s nothing a little Haldol won’t fix. More penetrating insights:

Since the A-series is based upon the square metre - and, ultimately, the metre as unit of length - it is but a short step to bring a sheet of A4 into contact with a rule graduated in mm.

Why, you’re right…that really is just a short step. I’d never thought of it that way, but it makes so much sense.

I wonder, is this how entrenched Naturalists see Intelligent Design? If so, I might begin to understand their dismissive scorn for ID, if not their failure to distinguish between a good idea and clinically significant behavior. But I digress.

P.S. Hat tip to Fairchild for her technical help.