The Butler And The Book

I have been thinking about how to effectively explain the difference between the way that professional creationists approach reality and the way that the same is approached by a rationalist. Having a certain taste for BBC murder mysteries, I think the best way would be to look at the careers of two chief inspectors.

Let us begin with Chief Inspector Creationist.  On his first day in his new position, the sergeant assigned to assist him enters and declares, “Here’s our first case, sir. A man has been found murdered.  Forensics has just arrived at the scene. We can be there in a few minutes to gather evidence.”

Chief  Inspector Creationist: No need. It’s obvious who committed the crime.

Sergeant: Excuse me me sir?  You don’t even know the victim’s name. How could you possibly solve the crime?

Chief  Inspector Creationist: There is only one possible answer, Sergeant. The butler did it.

Sergeant: But we don’t even know if there is a butler, sir!

Chief  Inspector Creationist: Of course there is. The butler always commits the murder.

Sergeant:  How could you know that sir?

Chief  Inspector Creationist: The Book, Sergeant. Haven’t you ever read the Book? It has all the answers to everything.

Sergeant:  Don’t you think we should at least go take a look at the scene?

Chief  Inspector Creationist: (Exasperated) If you must, do so. But I shall not waste my time, for the crime has been solved...by the Book.

Later that day the sergeant returns. The conversation resumes.

Sergeant:  Well, sir, it’s quite an interesting case. We do know however, that the butler could not possibly have committed the crime because there was no butler.

Chief  Inspector Creationist:  Don’t be foolish, man!  If there was no butler, he cannot have committed the crime.

Sergeant: Well, yes. That’s exactly my point. The family was on the dole. They were quite poor. They live in a very small flat. They could not possibly afford a part time cleaning lady, much less a butler! 

Chief  Inspector Creationist: Sergeant, I really wonder how you possibly could have attained your rank. Simply ignoring the facts is no way to conduct an investigation!

Sergeant: But these are the facts, sir.

Chief  Inspector Creationist: Is it really necessary for me to repeat myself? The Book says the butler did it. Therefore the butler did it. The Book is infallible, inerrant, and literal. 

The only possible conclusion is that there was a butler and that he is the guilty party.

Which leads to another question. How could a poor family afford a butler? Obviously, they couldn’t. Therefore they were somehow forcing the man to be their servant. And now we have a motive!

Sergeant:  Sir?

Chief  Inspector Creationist: Don’t you see it, man? The only way they could force a butler to serve them without pay is blackmail. They were blackmailing the butler to be their servant.  Finally fed up with it, he turned to murder in order to gain his freedom and revenge.

Sergeant: However, sir, the wife has already admitted that she couldn’t stand the victim’s snoring and smothered him to death in his sleep.

Chief  Inspector Creationist: So she’s covering for the butler. Perhaps he’s blackmailing her. Unless she is his lover...

As the investigation proceeds, Chief  Inspector Creationist closes all ports of entry and sets officers watching every bus station, train station, and other method of transportation searching for the butler.  When the murdering manservant is still not captured, he issues an international alert to Interpol. The butler must be found!

Years later, at his retirement party,  Chief  Inspector Creationist bemoans the fact that he spent his entire career hunting for that wicked man and never found him. In fact, he never took another case, having devoted all his efforts to solving the first and only crime ever presented for his investigation.  But he does not feel that he has failed in his duty, after all, he did defend the Book.

As for Chief Inspector Rationalist; on his first case, he went to the crime scene. He examined the forensic reports. He checked out the alibis and motives of every suspect.  He developed numerous hypotheses as to who was in fact guilty, discarding them when the evidence contradicted his conclusions.. In the end, a suspect confessed in the face of overwhelming evidence. Chief Inspector Rationalist and his sergeant moved on to solve many cases.

(A few of them even involved a butler.)

The Stuff Of Life

 Posted by my granddaughter:  A speculative piece on what I believe defines personality and whether personality persists in total isolation without external sources to react to.

https://soulleak.wordpress.com/2020/05/16/what-defines-personality/

An interesting article. Here is an excerpt: >But if a man was raised in a white, empty room without ever having human contact and assuming he does not need to be fed and has basic knowledge enough to be civilized and not like an animal, would he have personality? (In this example, he need not be fed for the sake of not having food to interact with). Without any faculties to react to, would he have intangible attributes of character?<

My response:  Interesting. Of course the problem with the thought experiment is raise a human being that way and they will simply die. Small children, especially babies, who don’t have sufficient human contact fail to thrive and die. Children adopted by Americans from highly neglectful orphanages have profound personality disorders that simply cannot be corrected. Look to Maslow‘s experiments with infant monkeys. Quite cruel, and today probably would not be permitted. However, quite informative.

Jun 20, 2018

PsychologicalScience.org

...the monkeys showed disturbed behavior, staring blankly, circling their cages, and engaging in self-mutilation. When the isolated infants were re-introduced to the group, they were unsure of how to interact — many stayed separate from the group, and some even died after refusing to eat.

 https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/us-experiment-on-infants-withholding-affection/13213

 > In the United States, 1944, an experiment was conducted on 40 newborn infants to determine whether individuals could thrive alone on basic physiological needs without affection. Twenty newborn infants were housed in a special facility where they had caregivers who would go in to feed them, bathe them and change their diapers, but they would do nothing else. The caregivers had been instructed not to look at or touch the babies more than what was necessary, never communicating with them. All their physical needs were attended to scrupulously and the environment was kept sterile, none of the babies becoming ill. 

The experiment was halted after four months, by which time, at least half of the babies had died at that point. At least two more died even after being rescued and brought into a more natural familial environment. There was no physiological cause for the babies' deaths; they were all physically very healthy. Before each baby died, there was a period where they would stop verbalizing and trying to engage with their caregivers, generally stop moving, nor cry or even change expression; death would follow shortly. The babies who had "given up" before being rescued, died in the same manner, even though they had been removed from the experimental conditions. 

The conclusion was that nurturing is actually a very vital need in humans. Whilst this was taking place, in a separate facility, the second group of twenty newborn infants were raised with all their basic physiological needs provided and the addition of affection from the caregivers. This time however, the outcome was as expected, no deaths encountered.<

We are social animals.  Without society, without socialization, we do not survive. The followers of Ayn Rand, so much of today’s conservative movement, ignores the basic nature of human beings. Their philosophy, if you want to call it that, makes as much sense as breatharianism. Yeah, there actually is such a thing. People who claim that you don’t need to eat food or even drink water, all you need to do is breathe.

Our need for human contact, for human touch, for human affection runs deep. So deep that it defines the very nature of what it means to be a living human being.  To expand on my granddaughter’s question, at what point do we cease to even care about our own survival?. Are these poor abused monkeys really monkeys? Where those poor abused babies really human?

One thing is clear, they did not even value their own survival in the absence of the affection of their own species.

To withdraw love and affection from those who love you and need you is one of the cruelest of all acts.  Whether you are a biblical literalist or an objective rationalist, it is clear that we are, as human beings, one great family.  Every stranger is a distant relative. We must care about each other and for each other or we will fail to thrive.

Water, Water, Everywhere

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a30338137/first-international-hydrogen-supply-chain/

I seem to be the only person who has realized that burning hydrogen and releasing only water vapor is not, in fact, completely nonpolluting.

The question of how to generate the hydrogen, and if that generation procedure itself creates pollution has been pointed out. But even if the hydrogen is produced entirely by renewable energy sources, there is still a result from burning all that hydrogen in our automobiles, airplanes and etc.  The pollutant is water.

Water as a pollutant? Sounds ridiculous. Think about it however. Maybe it’s because I live in the high desert that I realize that replacing all of the tons of smog generating pollutants with tons of water vapor would greatly raise the local humidity. That would change the climate. That could kill off natural desert vegetation and wildlife.

I can’t even imagine what the consequences would be to an area that has already high humidity. What would San Francisco look like if it’s even more humid? How about the Pacific Northwest?

Yes, technology can solve many problems.  It usually does so by creating new problems.

The filth, disease, and stench of American cities that resulted from all the horse droppings were relieved by the new internal combustion engine. Which gave us smog, lung disease, and all the problems with which we are now so familiar.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

A conversation with my daughter.
It starts the cartoon showing a nurse In scrubs holding up a sign saying “science” as he blocks a car containing a woman holding up a sign saying “stuff I read on Facebook”.

Me:  Excellent

J:  🙂

Me:  Been saying it for decades. Like it or not reality is real. And it doesn’t care whether we like it or not. It’s just remains real.

J: I did read that 81% of Americans don’t support these protests.  Not sure where I read it.

Me:  Are you aware that the entire “grassroots movement” has been organized by three gun nut brothers?

Fox News is pushing it hard.

It is real fake news, deliberately orchestrated in order to undermine the democracy of the United States. Note how many of its supporters are “militia” members. That means a great many are “sovereign citizens” identified by the FBI as an anti-government terrorist movement.

J:  Yes, they are doomsday preppers.   

274 days until Inauguration Day. We better have a new president. Not that I ever liked Biden. But the alternative is unthinkable.

Me:  I’m no fan of Biden either. Obama was elected as an anti-establishment candidate. Obviously, he really was establishment, but he was regarded as a radical change. Trump was elected as an anti-establishment candidate who was regarded as exemplifying radical change. Which turned out to be correct. Biden is being presented as an establishment candidate — safe, secure, and bringing things back to the normal that we all hated and despised so much. Still, as you point out, he’s a lot better than the orange faced clown in his  yellow fright wig.

J:  A photo of a “Liberate” mob, well armed and angry. Captioned as follows:

I mean you have to admit that it’s hilarious that the people who have spent their entire lives stockpiling beans and ammo and publishing newsletters about preparing to shelter in place during  a global crisis are the ones having meltdowns because they can’t go to the cheesecake factory.

Unbalanced

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-did-the-universe-get-so-lopsided/

The big bang and all generally accepted theories of the development of the universe are based on an  isotropic universe.  That is, a universe which looks the same in every direction overall. Fine details will be different of course but you’ll find the same basic structure everywhere you look. This was confirmed  by the Wilkerson anisotropy microwave probe, the famous WMAP.

What this article indicates is that since 2003 data has been accumulating of universe is not isotropic in a number of critical ways.

This is why science can be trusted. It keeps checking on itself. And when science finds that it is wrong, it doesn’t struggle to make weird excuses; it admits it was wrong and  seeks a more accurate model of the universe.  If this data continues to accumulate, our views of the nature of the universe we live in will change dramatically. If.

What we can state with certainty is that whatever the facts are, science will face them.

Our Feast Of Fools

Thoughts on Mr. Trump.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming election. Will enough people will finally face the truth about Mr. Trump to bring his Feast of Fools to an end (obviously not his most ardent supporters; no amount of reality will ever change their minds)?

Will a sufficient number of Americans finally see that Mr. Trump simply does not care about the existence, welfare, or even the survival of his fellow human beings? Will they finally see that a very low intelligence, narcissistic, utterly incompetent dolt is not a good choice for president? We will see.

Win or lose one election, possibly the more important question is whether this lifelong criminal will ever be held accountable. I have made sarcastic references to “lock him up”, but they are of course, sarcastic.

I upset liberals because of this position as they want to see him held accountable. Well, so do I. I just don’t think he can be held accountable.  This is not because of the precedent set by President Ford when he pardoned Nixon for his atrocious crimes. I believed Ford was wrong at the time and I continue to believe he was wrong now. The idea that holding a president accountable would somehow harm the nation reminds me of De Gaulle declaring that no marshal of France could ever be tried as  traitor even though Petain had in fact utterly betrayed his country and assisted in the mass murder of French Jews. It was a bad decision and it set a horrible precedent.

Of course conservatives are even more angry at me for declaring why I feel Trump cannot be held accountable.

The reason is because I sincerely believe the man to legally insane. Remember that insane is not a clinical or medical term. It is a legal term. It refers to a person who cannot be held accountable for the actions which they undertake because they do not understand that there is anything wrong with those actions.  It does not refer to any particular type of psychiatric disorder, instead it refers only to the capacity of the individual to understand the difference between right and wrong and therefore to make a morally responsible decision. 

I simply do not believe that Donald Trump is capable of making such a decision. He does not know the difference between right and wrong. He does not know the difference between moral and immoral. I do not believe that he even understands that anyone in this world is an actual, real, sentient human being except for himself.

Yes, he is a monster. He has caused possibly irreparable damage to America and to decent people all over the world. His mishandling of this pandemic has caused people to die. He has systematized and legalized massive child abuse by our governmental officials through the abuse of immigrant families. He has committed many more crimes. But does he understand that they are crimes? Does he realize that these are not moral actions? I do not believe that he does. I do not believe he is capable of knowing this. Yes, he is a monster. However, I find him to be a monster to be pitied and be placed into the care of mental health professionals so as to protect himself and all those around him from his emotional disability.

Notes:

From Law.com. insanity n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior. Insanity is distinguished from low intelligence or mental deficiency due to age or injury.

From Britannica.   Feast of Fools. Feast of Fools, popular festival during the Middle Ages, held on or about January 1, particularly in France,

I, Human?

https://singularityhub.com/2020/01/08/the-top-biotech-trends-well-be-watching-in-2020/

Here’s an ethical challenge and also a great potential story.  Imagine a hybrid born with unexpected human characteristics.. .now what?  Euthanasia? Raise it as a lab animal even though it is disturbingly human?  Try to fit it into a human family like those chimps in 1970’s experiments?

In 2019 Japan removed restrictions from experimentation involving human animal hybrid embyos.  You don’t hear much about it today but I took a look just to see. Here are some excerpts from the report I read:

> The more ethically-challenged idea is to grow human organs directly inside other animals—in other words, engineer human-animal hybrid embryos and bring them to term. This approach marries two ethically uncomfortable technologies, germline editing and hybrids, into one solution that has many wondering if these engineered animals may somehow receive a dose of “humanness” by accident during development. What if, for example, human donor cells end up migrating to the hybrid animal’s brain?

Nevertheless, this year scientists at the University of Tokyo are planning to grow human tissue in rodent and pig embryos and transplant those hybrids into surrogates for further development. For now, bringing the embryos to term is completely out of the question. But the line between humans and other animals will only be further blurred in 2020, and scientists have begun debating a new label, “substantially human,” for living organisms that are mainly human in characteristics—but not completely so. <

So stop worrying about cyborgs and start worrying about “substantially human” creatures.

Reference note from Goodreads.com. >Asimov wrote the short story "The Ugly Little Boy" in 1958. But there is much more to the story of the little Neanderthal boy plucked out of time and transferred to the 21st century. Now, Robert Silverberg--in this second collaboration with Asimov--has made this sf classic into an engrossing novel-length tale.<