Category Archives: Science

Updated: Meaningless Musical Chairs

Democrats, Elections 2008, Government, Media, Political Philosophy, Politics, Republicans, Science

The parties are exchanging spit:

MSNBC: “Republican Sen. Arlen Specter disclosed plans Tuesday to switch parties, bringing Democrats closer to the 60-vote supermajority they need to push Barack Obama’s agenda through the Senate.”

The imagery conjured by defections, or ideological spit swapping, between Republicans and Democrats, in my mind, is of two colossal, identical amoebas occasionally allowing their semi-permeable cell walls to open and merge with a biologically compatible, primitive organism. In fact, that’s the perfect, dynamic metaphor for our two-party system.

Although dyed-in-the-wool party parrots will disagree, based on fact, reality, and policy prescriptions, the differences between the parties exist along a continuum; are quantitative, not qualitative.

As I said in “The Commie Who Controls the Economy From the Grave”:

“How much to hand out; who to hand it to; which handout makes the best use of taxpayer money; do the Big Three submit a business plan with their bailout requisitions, or not—that’s the depth of the ‘philosophical’ to-be-or-not-to-be among Republikeynsians.”

Mercer in 2006: “What we have now is a cartel, the traditional ideological differences between the political parties having been permanently blurred.”

The solution?

Mercer in 2006: “Antitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.”

Update: Look at the bright side. The political developments have steered Commissar Keith of MSNBC away from lamenting, night after night, the damage water boarding has wrought on Abu Zubaydah’s bladder, to speculating how Specter’s defection will help his man Obama’s agenda.

Sully Sullenberger: Steel Worth Protecting

Feminism, Gender, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Science

Captain Chesley B. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger, III, to Ground Control: “Unable: We’re Going To Be In the Hudson.”

Those were the laconic, spare words of ‘Sully,’ as he calmly prepared to land Cactus 1549, an engineless passenger plane, in the Hudson.

This former ace F-4 fighter pilot is so obviously of the right stuff. This is what it means to be a man—in the traditional sense. Silent, steely, short-on-words and ego, big on humility, ability, and reliability. The kind of guy who’s the best at what he does and almost always comes through for you.

There is a deep lesson here about the value of an endangered virtue: manliness. You see it in older men like Sully. They have that deep voice, the slight swagger no amount of politically correct taming can subdue, and they do their jobs to perfection.

Then there is the New Man. I described him here:

“I was stocking up on groceries at Fred Meyer when I heard this fretful falsetto. ‘Honey, look at these ingredients. Oh my God. Check the percentage of trans fats. It’s outrageous!’ The fussing, believe it or not, was coming from a man. He was hopping up and down on spindly legs, beckoning his wife excitedly. I quickly moved on, thanking my lucky stars that the spouse had gravitated automatically to the hardware section of the store, and was itching to move on to Home Depot.”

“Whenever I venture out, I encounter this not-so-new breed of man. Typically, he’ll have a few spoilt, cranky kids in tow, and a papoose strapped to a sunken chest. He’ll be laboring to make the outing to Trader Joe’s a ‘learning experience’ for the brats—one that every other store patron is forced to endure. This generic guy oozes psychological correctness and zero manliness. He’s not necessarily effeminate, mind you. Rather, he’s safely androgynous, and most certainly not guy-like in the traditional sense. As personalities go, he and the wife are indistinguishable.”

It’s rather alarming: everywhere around me—and on television—the prototypical father, in his early 50s, late 40s, is often more Sully-like than his son. The latter is the New Man: high voice, pudgy face, sensitive mannerism. Unattractive.

Ladies (“mature” ones, at least), who would you rather date, Chris Cillizza of the trendy eye-wear and affectatious mannerism, or Tom Brokaw? (Old-style gentlemen also seem to stick with their sweethearts until death do them apart.)

All the above is why I, personally, find men in the writing profession (with exceptions, naturally), especially bloggers, particularly off-putting. (And a man who blogs shoulder-to-shoulder with his wife is like a man who bakes with her. You just know he’s puny in spirit and petty.)

And not solely because we writers are often ego-bound, self-centered, and unable to get beyond ourselves–vices that are particularly ugly in a man. Rather, I like men who can do what I can’t do. I like that my husband manipulates for a living concepts I cannot fathom.

Don’t get me wrong; I did well at math, but I had to work at it (hard working is another manly trait). And I loved post-graduate level statistics, which I aced. But there is no comparison between the level of math required for the soft subjects—business, economics, statistics—and the hard and applied sciences. The latter is beyond me. Physics, astrophysics, and electrical engineering—manipulating the laws of nature for a living—which is what goes into a thorough understanding of physics and electrical and aerospace engineering: that awes me, because it is beyond me. (The old boy won’t even read this blog unless forced to; or if we’re arguing and he wants to check up on what I’ve been up to. GRIN)

Since I’ve already meandered from the topic, and the Main Man: In his fascinating book, America’s Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama’s Story of Race and Inheritance, Steve Sailer comments on the intelligence of Obama versus that of his Ivy-League, physicist half-brother. Unless I misunderstood the IQ Ace, he believed these values would be comparable.

I disagree. Granted, I assert this based on gut, not numbers. But since Steve, I believe, did not provide a citation for that particular snippet, I’m willing to bet that Obama is unable to master the level of abstraction required by a, presumably, top physicist such as his half-brother. I can do law; I can’t do physics, astrophysics–or design, calculate, and calibrate the stuff that goes into a cell phone. I don’t buy the theory of differing, but equal, intelligence. Such intelligence egalitarianism in just a PC way of elevating more common, attainable abilities. There are many more lawyers than physicists.

In any event, the steel that is Sully is worth protecting (as opposed to protectionism for American steel and steel workers).

Sans Sunspots, Global Cooling Could Be Next

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Pseudoscience, Science

Regular readers of Barely a Blog will remember Phil N. Baldwin’s ground-breaking essay featured on this site last year about sun spots and global warming.

Do read or reread “Global Warming: CO2, Sunspots, Or Politics?”

Others are catching on, albeit slowly. Space Daily is reporting (in fractured syntax and grammar) that the sun has entered what appears to be a period of solar inactivity. “Solar activity refers to phenomena like sunspots, solar flares and solar eruptions.”

“Solar physicists … have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period coincided with a little ice age on Earth that lasted from 1650 to 1700.”

IQ & Aggregate Groups Differences

Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Intelligence, Race, Science

I said in the interview I gave our friend the Bad Eagle that

“Broad statements about aggregate group characteristics, provided they are substantiated by hard evidence, not hunches, are not incorrect. Science relies on the ability to generalize to the larger population observations drawn from a representative sample. People make prudent decision in their daily lives as to where to invest scarce and precious resources—to wit, one’s life and property—based on probabilities and generalities.”

Although most professional (read safe) individualists have yet to figure this out, individualism, ultimately, doesn’t mean denying aggregate group differences, but, rather, treating every individual on his merit.

Steve Sailer’s thoughts on James Watson underscore the same incongruity. On the one, hand most people refuse to acknowledge the less laudable aspects of diversity. On the other hand, the decisions people take to protect their prized possessions and promote their precious children demonstrate they are more than aware of these unacknowledged differences:

“In reality, American homebuyers (most of whom, I’m sorry to say, are not VDARE.com readers) are obsessively interested in the ethnic make-up of local public schools. Without my help, they appear to accept the “stereotype” that white and Asian students will provide a more studious peer group for their children than blacks and Latinos.

Thus, houses in districts with mostly white and Asian students often sell for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars more than in districts populated mostly by black and Hispanic students.

Moreover, many middle class parents are obsessed with getting their children into exclusive gifted and magnet public schools…

So, even though any MSM mention of average racial IQ differences is ferociously punished, as demonstrated yet again the forced retirement of Dr. Watson, home prices nevertheless show that the average American has somehow come to a rough but reasonably accurate understanding of the statistical realities.

How did he ever learn this without reading it in the newspaper? Apparently, as Yogi Berra once said, ‘You can observe a lot just by watching.’”

Also via Sailer is this comprehensive “exposition of the present state of scientific understanding concerning IQ and race,” courtesy of “Gene Expression.” It’s pretty unremarkable stuff. What’s remarkable is that these statistically significant intergroup differences (a standard deviation or more) are denied, downgraded in significance, or put down to a methodological artifact of the tests—their validity and reliability. Also buried in the denunciations is the correlation between intelligence and various socio-economic indicators.