We need a bigger brick

• FEWER THAN 90 DAYS UNTIL THE APOCaccredALYPSE. I've heard very little about the goings-on at the district and the two colleges. As you know, the Accreditation Commission expects reports from each college in less than three months. (It's do or die this time, they insist.) And so you'd think that the designated report-writers would be busy bees.

I do know that Irvine Valley College's Accreditation efforts have moved forward nicely during these summer months. By all accounts, the focus group, which is impressive, has produced many pages of excellent work. Even more impressively, faculty have yet to throttle trustee Don Wagner, and the Wag-Man has yet to throttle any faculty.

As far as accreditation is concerned, Saddleback College, on the other hand, is like the guy who "flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions." Saddleback's Accred focus group has produced a draft of a report that, according to my sources, is short, unimpressive, and sans faculty input. You see, way back in the spring, Saddleback faculty leadership decided to bail from the proceedings—in disgust, a feeling that was perfectly natural, given the viciousness with which Donny and MaGoo messed with the last report. When the new leadership returned from vacation this summer, they were shocked to behold an apparent disaster-in-the-making.

Meanwhile, administration at Saddleback is sans leadership until the new Prez arrives in August. But nobody wants to deal with Chancellor "He who must be obeyed" Mathur, and our trustees, evidently, do not communicate between board meetings. (Some of 'em don't communicate during board meetings either.)

So there you are. Big, old Saddleback College lumbers and slumbers to the brink. Raghu Mathur sits in his office, counting his money and admiring his phony degrees. The trustees show up once a month to see if any buildings are burning. ("No? OK, then.") Trustee Tom Fuentes wanders around, smiling at his continued dark existence. —It's a freakin' disaster.

I've been trying to smash that college upside the head (don't thank me; it's the least I can do) for months now, but, evidently, there's no brick large enough to awaken this crew.

And now, the news:

• MY BIG FAT CORRUPT CONGRESSMAN. Oh, great. My Congressman—the stunningly corrupt Gary Miller—is at it again. In this morning’s OC Register (Congressman has financial stake in O.C. tollway), we learn that “One of Congress' strongest supporters of the Foothill tollway's controversial southern extension steered taxpayer money to and lobbied for the project while holding a financial interest in a connected tollway." "In an interview," we're told, "Miller acknowledged getting an $8 million appropriation for Foothill-South's construction in 2005. He has subsequently signed letters to the state Coastal Commission and the Commerce Secretary as part of a lobbying effort in support of the tollway agency's plan to build the road through a coastal park."

Naturally, Miller “expressed surprise when asked about that investment.” Must’ve been the wife who bought that, he says. Waddya gonna do?

The Reg notes that it is against House rules for a Congressperson to appropriate money or to use his position “to benefit projects and organizations in which they have even a small financial investment.”

• DEATH AND TEXAS. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed, we learn that

British authors and universities are afraid that the University of Texas at Austin is outbidding British archives for the collections of many of the country’s writers. [In an article that appeared in the Guardian, a] British archivist is quoted as saying: “Two things are inevitable: death and Texas.”

• HEY, TRY STUDYING. We also learn that

Community colleges in California might be able to significantly reduce the need for remedial education among students by using the results of 11th grade state testing to better direct students prior to enrollment, says a new report from the California Partnership for Achieving Student Success, known as Cal-PASS….

This has been tried by a state university, and it seems to work, they say.

• CHEAT.COM. Remember that new website in San Diego that provides copies of instructors' tests submitted by students (they're paid) for other students to download? Well, when professors complained, the owner said that the professors could submit a request to ban their students from using the service. But, according to Inside Higher Ed, now we learn that PostYourTest.com has suspended the banning option.

I think it was a business decision. I bet that Demir Oral, the website's owner, is a pal of Gary freakin' Miller and they count their money together on Republican junkets to China.

• SEXY BIOLOGIST HAS A POINTLESS SUGGESTION. In this morning’s New York Times (Let’s Get Rid of Darwinism), sexy biologist Olivia Judson suggests dumping the term “Darwinism.”

Naturally, she’s a fan of the D-man. But, according to Judson, his stature has an unfortunate consequence: "It’s a tendency for everyone to refer back to him. 'Why Darwin was wrong about X'; 'Was Darwin wrong about Y?'; 'What Darwin didn’t know about Z'."

“[I]t’s all grossly misleading,” she says. Since Darwin's time (one hundred and fifty years ago),

…[T]he field as a whole has been transformed. If we were to go back in a time machine and fetch him to the present day, he’d find much of evolutionary biology unintelligible — at least until he’d had time to study genetics, statistics and computer science…. Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today….

This all sounds good to me, but does she or anyone think that the culture will be taking her up on her suggestion? Nope. There're too many STUPID PEOPLE. Makes you wonder why somebody like Judson writes stuff like this.

Makes me wonder why I put out this blog.

The county of many Pharisees

• QUAINT, REDNECKY ORANGE. Recently, I visited downtown Orange and took a few pictures of my old house, a former brothel. (Chunk's travelogue.) Today, the LA Times posted a nice little video/slide show of the downtown Orange area: Orange, Orange Plaza. Check it out. It’s kinda nice, despite the rednecks—and flags, made in China, waved by ignoramuses, who would vote for Bush again if given the chance.

• ATTACK-DOGS TO DROOL AND SNARL AT G.O.P. CONFERENCE. Martin Wisckol of the OC Register’s “Total Buzz” (Obama ‘enemies’ to powwow in Newport Beach) reports that “Floyd Brown and Jim Lacy, two of the six people listed on Barack Obama’s enemies list, will be key players when the Western Conservative Political Action Conference convenes in October at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach. ¶ Brown is most famous for his Willie Horton TV ad ... and he’s now turning his attack-dog skills against Obama….”

OK, there you go. In some circles, when you’re an “attack-dog”—a ruthless, vicious bastard like Lee Atwater or Karl Rove—you’re famous and admired. People come to hear you speak.

We're obviously going to hell in a handbasket.

• STEM CELLS WIN VALUABLE CASH PRIZES. The OC Register’s “Science Dude” reports that “UC Irvine has shattered its previous record for private donations, raising $130 million during the past year….” ( UCI smashes fundraising record.)

Naturally, the biggest donor was the Irvine Company’s Donald Bren (see pic above), who put in $20 million for the new law school, the progress of which we have been following. A recent anonymous $12 million gift supports stem cell research. It turns out that UCI “has emerged as one of the larger centers for this field of study on the West Coast.”

Our county’s crew of pious/ruthless knuckle draggers must have their loincloths in a twist about that. Lord, I hope so.

• THE OC LOSES A GOOD SCRIBBLER. Our pal (well, the Reb’s pal) Gustavo Arellano over at the OC Weekly posted an interesting piece today about reporter William Lobdell (WILLIAM LOBDELL—GONE :-(), who has quit the LA Times. According to Gustavo, “Lobdell was no ordinary reporter—the man was a multiple-award-winning titan, one of the best religion reporters ever to grace American newspapers, and definitely the best in covering the Gospel Swamp that is Orange County. He left the religion beat last year, sickened by the county's many Pharisees.”

Gustavo doesn't identify these Pharisees, but he does list some of our county's most (in)famous religious icons: "Schuller, Warren, Crouch, Calvary Chapel, Goat Boy, Robert Fuller...."

The Bible as "literally true"

This morning's Inside Higher Ed reports that

Southwestern Community College, in Iowa, has reached a settlement with Steve Bitterman [I'm sure he's a man; do you suppose he's bitter, too?], an adjunct who lost his job after he offended some students by stating that the Bible is not literally true. The Des Moines Register reported that Bitterman is no longer teaching at the college and that details of the settlement have not been released.

I guess this means that, according to Southwestern Community College, the Bible IS literally true.

My own view is that anyone who reads this troubled collection of writings as (always) intending to describe the "literal" truth has an implausible and outlandish theory. I mean, how plausible is it to suppose that everything that appears in the Bible is tacitly prefaced (by it's author[s]) with: "OK, I know this sounds unbelievable, but here's exactly what happened. No bullshit. You shoulda been there!"?

So they are obliged to justify their startling theory. Good luck. And I mean that.

It is possible, of course, that all of the Bible's statements not only are intended as the literal truth—they are the literal truth. —Well, not quite, since, notoriously, the "statements" and implied assumptions of the B appear to contradict each other, and, as you know, Logic is really down on contradictions. If there's one thing that philosophers and logicians agree on, it's that S can't be both T and F. That's because philosophers and logicians are not STUPID PEOPLE.

But leaving aside the Bible's apparent contradictory ideas (good luck defending that move), the alleged "statements of fact" of the Bible could be true. But they could be true only if some of our most central and warranted beliefs about the world (based on careful observation, etc.) are false. (Think of the reasons that we believe that the Earth is billions of years old.) So, if "the Bible is literally true" were a theory, it would be one that fails to be "conservative," as some scientists might put it. That is, the theory fails to have the important theoretical virtue of comporting with what is well-established in our experience.

That's the big problem with the theory behind homeopathic medicine, too. According to H theory, when you dilute an active homeopathic medicinal substance (say, cat urine), it becomes more effective. (Indeed, homeopaths routinely dilute to the point that not one molecule of the original urine is left—and they acknowledge this.)

As I often tell my students, the problem with that is that everything in our experience tells us the opposite. Take consuming alcohol from, say, a huge stein. The more the alcohol in your stein, the more effect it will have on you when you empty it into your body, from incipient buzzage all the way to death. (Students always laugh when I say ""from buzzage to death." Not sure why.) So when homeopaths come along and tell us that their Cat Urine medicine (OK, I just made up that example) is very powerful because it was diluted—well, what are we supposed to make of all of our experiences—with beer, and aspirin, and everything else—to the contrary?

Bible literalists and homeopaths are bold theorists. "That's OK," they say. "Contrary to appearances, beer has its greatest impact when its alcohol is diluted down to nothing."

Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.

Well, OK, maybe they don't say that. But then what will they say? Maybe: "OK, I admit it, this doesn't add up. But that's OK. When a set of beliefs don't hang together, what you need to do is just go with it. Well, no, that would be irrational, so we don't recommend that for most things. We just recommend it for this case. In fact, we insist on it; we demand that you suspend your rational standards exactly and only here."

Wow. That's some pitch. Tell me how that isn't the pitch. If it is the pitch, then it's crap, and we need to walk away. If it isn't, then enlighten me. How is this supposed to go exactly?

I'm waiting.

(Listen, like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. But you've got to give me a reason. You've got to make sense. Please start making sense.)

Penn and Teller's (typically irreverent and sometimes sloppy but way fun) approach to "contradictions in the Bible":



My quickie critique:

• Well, the video is entertaining.
• I'm not sure if P & T described this video as being specifically about "contradictions" in the Bible. (See "The Bible: Fact Or Fiction?") If so, they're a bit confused, since they only discuss one contradiction, namely, the distinctly different versions of the Adam & Eve story in Genesis. P & T are really discussing other kinds of problems with the Bible than "contradiction." Contradiction is when you say S and then you say or imply "not-S."
• Some of the rest of the video zeroes in on things the Bible says that seem to be false or absurd. If something is false or absurd, it is not ipso facto "contradictory." Get it right. (The belief that "I am tormented by a green pumpkin" is absurd, but it is not contradictory. "I am tormented by a married bachelor" is both absurd and contradictory.)
• As P & T point out, there's no evidence for many of the events described in the Bible (the 40 years in the wilderness, the Resurrection, etc.). But, of course, that doesn't demonstrate the falsity of these stories. It only demonstrates that, as things stand, there's no reason to believe these stories. P & T should be more careful. On the other hand, if there's no reason to believe a story, why believe it? Belief-wise, doncha wanna do better than Shirley MacLaine? I sure hope so.
• Naturally, there is evidence for the falsity of some Biblical stories, e.g., the world-wide flood. If it occurred, then there should be evidence of its occurrence; there isn't any. So, probably, it didn't happen. (Same for Bigfoot. How come no bones? How come no scat? How come no nothin'? Thus, probably, no Bigfoot.)
• Respected skeptic Michael Shermer is interviewed, noting that "messiah" stories were pretty common at the time of the rise of Christianity. I suppose the point is that there's no reason to take the Christian messiah story any more seriously than any of the other messiah stories. Nobody, including the Christian Believer, has a reason to take all of them seriously. So he has no reason to take the Christian yarn seriously. (Again, we are given a reason to suppose that a story ought not to be believed, not a reason suppose that the story is false. Of course, an embrace of simple physics & biology is enough to give us the latter sort of reason with regard to some aspects of these stories—e.g., someone's coming to life after have been dead for some time.)
• P & T make a good point: some defenders of the Bible explain away stories by reinterpreting them as non-miracles. A believer might consistently take that tack in responding to critics/skeptics, but, if he does, hasn't he abandoned the supernatural in favor of a naturalistic story of how things went? Yawn.
• Less colorful approaches to "contradictions" and absurdities in the Bible are available. I've been meaning to read Baggini's Atheism: a Very Short Introduction. Is that good? The American Humanist Association offers this, a list of alleged contradictions and inconsistencies.
* * * * *
• Some Believers make a big point of "demonstrating" that the events described in the Bible — the opening of the sea, the Egyptian plagues, etc. — could have occurred. If by this they mean that the events are consistent with science, then they run the risk mentioned above (reinterpreting religious belief as naturalistic—and thus as non-supernatural—belief). But there's another problem: that something could have occurred is not an argument that it did occur. As I often tell my students, it is just barely possible that I am the Weasel King of the universe. (It is conceivable.) But only a lunatic would infer that I am in fact the Weasel King of the universe. Possibility does not imply actuality. Yes, on some interpretations of this word, there could be a God. It is conceivable. (I guess I'd have to say, too, that I hope it's true.) But it would be absurd to infer from this that such a being exists. And if one were to draw this inference, to be consistent, they'd have to acknowledge the existence of other "possible" Gods, including my Weasel King. BTW: I, the Weasel King, command you to send me all of your worldly possessions.
• The above point reminds me of a limitation of common responses to the "problem of evil" (these are usually called "theodicies"). Many theists struggle to show that the existence of the evils of this world could be consistent with the existence of a perfect and perfectly good God. Maybe they can succeed in this.
.....But the crucial question is: what is the most reasonable belief—that God exists or that God does not exist? The former sort of theodicy never seems to prevent the answer: "Well, sure, God could exist. But, given the existence of Dick Cheney (etc.), it's as unlikely as hell. It is more reasonable to deny the existence of God than to affirm the existence of God."
.....But seriously, folks, we can maybe understand how God might allow Cain to suffer some misfortune as a consequence of Abel's free will; but how are we to understand a good Creator's allowing thousands or tens of thousands to perish or suffer just so Mean Murray can be free?
.....This picture strains for coherence. On the other hand, the picture of a world with Mean Murrays and no God doesn't strain at all. It offers no puzzles, no incoherences. So you've got to go with picture #2.
.....And I guess that's why God made atheists.

New reality series: Orange County's most lethal politician

• MURDERED PROF. Over at the OC Reg, Marla Jo Fisher’s “College Life” blog offers some “breaking news”: Former UCI professor found murdered:

Former UCI Professor Lindon Barrett, ex-director of UCI’s African American Studies program and an English professor, was found dead in his downtown Long Beach apartment, apparently murdered, according to Long Beach police….

At the time of his death, Barrett was a Professor of English at UC Riverside.

• IRVINE: LIKE A FINE TURD IN A SHRINKING GLASS OF MILK. Irvine’s in the news. According to the OC Reg (4 of O.C.’s 7 biggest cities lose population), while Huntington Beach, Orange, Fullerton, and Costa Mesa are declining in population, Irvine’s growing. It grew by 4.3% from July ’06 to July ’07.

—Plus, Money magazine ranks Irvine as the 4th best place to live in the country (Irvine called 4th best place to live in U.S).

• CARONA SAYS HE’S “LETHAL.” Here’s the latest on the Mike Carona saga: 'Death spiral' of relationship between ex-O.C. Sheriff Carona and D.A. described on secret tapes:

Former Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona thought Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas was trying to "take me out" and that their relationship had deteriorated into "one of those death spirals" after a special grand jury was impaneled last year to investigate the beating death of a jail inmate, according to court documents filed Monday.

Carona, speaking to former Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl during a conversation secretly recorded by the federal government, said he would emerge unscathed from the investigation because he was the "most lethal" politician in Orange County, the court documents show….

Long-time Dissent readers know that DA Rackauckas and former Sheriff Carona share the same chief advisor: OC “Republican Mafia” chief Mike Schroeder, who happens to be one of Trustee Tom Fuentes’ closest associates.

Naturally, Mike is married to Rackauckas’ public-affairs counsel Susan Kang Schroeder.
Schroeder and Rackauckas are pretty corrupt. In 2002, the OC Weekly’s Scott Moxley wrote that Rackauckas was emerging as “the most corrupt politician in one of the most corrupt counties in the nation.” (See Spot the Gas Leak and Flashes of Lunacy.)

Orange County is just the best. Best cities, best beaches, best corruption, best right-wing lunatics—and the best TV shows, too.

• MANCHURIAN CANDIDATES. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed:

• [SOME DAY, THEY'LL THANK US WITH A CARD.] A new study has found that the institutions whose undergraduates were most likely to earn a Ph.D. from a university in the United States in 2006 were both in China: Tsinghua University and Peking University, Science reported. Those institutions overtook the University of California at Berkeley. Following Berkeley are Seoul National University, Cornell University and the University of Michigan.

• [YOU MEAN, IT IS LITERALLY TRUE?] Southwestern Community College, in Iowa, has reached a settlement with Steve Bitterman, an adjunct who lost his job after he offended some students by stating that the Bible is not literally true. The Des Moines Register reported that Bitterman is no longer teaching at the college and that details of the settlement have not been released.

The headings are my own, not IHE's. But you knew that.

C'mon!

See: New Yorker editor defends controversial Obama cover

.....We're officially hopeless.
.....(OK. If you believe that Jonathan Swift was a cannibal, you need to stop reading this post. Please go away.)
.....Over at YouTube, you'll find a number of people who have posted angry diatribes against the New Yorker, not for supposedly implying (via its infamous cover) that Obama is a Muslim terrorist, but for making fun of those who believe that!
.....Well, at least they "got" the New Yorker cover.
.....But how can so many Americans believe that Obama is an Islamic terrorist? WHENCE STUPID PEOPLE?
.....Recent polls suggest that many Americans believe specifically that Obama is a Muslim, that he refuses to say the Pledge, that he refused to be sworn in (as U.S. Senator) on a Bible, that he attended an Islamic school, etc.—when numerous news organizations have determined that these rumors are flat false. (See CNN on "Obama Muslim Myth".)
.....(—Not that there's anything wrong with being Muslim, etc.)
.....Q: So where do these ideas come from?

.....As you know (don't you?), a Rovian dirty trick ensured that George W. Bush won the crucial South Carolina primary against John McCain, back in 2000:

Wikipedia on Whisper Campaigns (See also Boston Globe):

During the 2000 Republican presidential primary, Senator John McCain was the target of a whisper campaign implying that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock. (McCain's adopted daughter is a naturally dark-skinned child from Bangladesh). Voters in South Carolina were reportedly asked, "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew that he fathered an illegitimate black child?". McCain would later lose the South Carolina primary, and the nomination, to George W. Bush.

In addition, on the week of the nomination vote, dozens of radio stations were called on the same day asking talk show hosts what they thought of McCain's having fathered a black child out of wedlock.

McCain later said of the incidents:

"There were some pretty vile and hurtful things said during the South Carolina primary. It's a really nasty side of politics. We tried to ignore it and I think we shielded [our daughter] from it. It's just unfortunate that that sort of thing still exists. As you know she's Bengali, and very dark skinned. A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying, 'You know, the McCains have a black baby.' I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those."

* * * * *
.....Here's some background re the "Obama as Muslim" whisper campaign:

Wikipedia on Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008:

In 2004, conservative columnist Andy Martin issued a press release alleging that Obama had "sought to misrepresent his heritage," indirectly triggering one of the first viral emails spreading false rumors about Obama's background.

The issue lay fallow for almost three years, but picked up again in late 2006, as the announcement of Obama's presidential candidacy approached. In October, a conservative blog, Infidel Bloggers Alliance, reposted Martin's press release in response to a question about Obama's heritage. Then, on December 26, conservative activist Ted Sampley, co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, posted a column suggesting Obama was a secret Muslim, heavily quoting Martin's original press release. Shortly afterward, many chain e-mails began circulating claiming that Obama was a hypothetical "Manchurian Candidate." According to [Christopher] Hayes, one of these emails was forwarded to Snopes [an "urban legend" site] within hours of Sampley's story. Hayes believes that the email was likely a slightly altered version of the Sampley article, which was in turn heavily based on Martin's 2004 press release. Martin told Hayes that he got numerous calls once the emails began circulating. When the callers asked him if he wrote the release, Martin replied, "They are all my children."

* * * * *
• .....You might want to read A Tale of Political Dirty Tricks Makes the Case for Election Reform, which appeared in the New York Times in January.
.....This opinion piece discusses a tell-all book by Republican Party operative Allen Raymond, who went to jail for jamming phone lines on election day 2002 (for the benefit of Republican John Sununu). Raymond is bitter about the experience.
.....Raymond, who came from a privileged background, eventually made his way to the top of the Republican Party’s national organization:

.....It was a world in which, he claims, dirty tricks were the norm. When [he] opened a political telemarketing firm, he was hired by a Republican challenging a New Jersey Democratic congressman. Mr. Raymond’s company — in a plan he says he hatched with [the challenger's] advisers — called liberal Democrats and urged them to vote for the Green Party candidate.
.....Those same advisers, he says, gave Mr. Raymond another assignment: to call white households asking them to vote for the Democrat, using the voice of, as he puts it, a “ghetto black guy.” He also called union households, using voices with thick Spanish accents.

.....In the case of the Sununu election dirty tricks,

Mr. Raymond says his instructions came from James Tobin, the northeast regional director of the Republican National Committee. And he says a top official of the New Hampshire Republican Party provided the phone numbers of the Democratic get-out-the-vote banks. Mr. Raymond jammed the lines — placing hundreds of hang-up calls an hour — to five Democratic offices across the state and a phone bank run by volunteer firefighters.

.....Ah, but this effort was detected. The Republican Party then spent big money defending Tobin (successfully), but not Raymond, who went to the pokey. According to Raymond, the Party “not only threw me under the bus but then blamed me for getting run over.”
.....Congress seems uninterested in stopping the dirty tricks, which have been with us always in one form or another. Evidently, there is a decent bill that addresses dirty tricks. It the Deceptive Practices Act, and it is sponsored by Barack Obama and Charles Schumer, et al.
.....It doesn’t have a prayer.

McCain bashes USC; UC workers go on strike; Arnold helps part-timers; Spain moves toward granting chimps rights

• BUT AT THE BALBOA BAY CLUB? In this morning’s OC Register: Barack Obama raises more than $1 million in O.C:

…The seven-figure haul led to a little gloating by Frank Barbaro, chairman of the Democratic Party of Orange County, who noted that presumed Republican nominee John McCain raised slightly less during a Newport Beach fundraiser last month….

See also Jim Lacy on Obama's enemies list

• UC STRIKE. Also in the Reg: UCI workers on strike:

.....Janitors, cafeteria employees and other workers at the UCI Medical Center and residence halls are on strike this morning, potentially disrupting some services for hospital patients and visitors.
…
.....The job action is part of a statewide strike against the University of California involving a bitter wage dispute that led to the cancellations of commencement speakers such as Bill Clinton last month at UCLA….

• GOOD NEWS FOR PART-TIMERS. In this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: California Raises Ceiling on Part Timers’ Work:

.....California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday signed legislation that raises the limit on how much individual part-time faculty members can work at any one community college from 60 percent to 67 percent of a full-time professor’s load.
.....While the increase of seven percentage points may seem relatively minor, it will have a significant impact on many adjuncts. Those who teach 5-unit courses (a common circumstance for those in languages and some other fields, and one third of a standard 15-credit load) have been unable to teach more than one course at a college. Those wanting a full-time load have to teach at three or more institutions.
…
.....“The original idea was to assure that we had no non-tenure track, full-time positions,” said Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, who teaches mathematics at Los Angeles Valley College. The problem, he said, is that “it wasn’t advancing the number of full-time positions. Districts were hiring for 60 percent and then people had to teach somewhere else.”….

• THE UNIVERSITY OF "SPOILED CHILDREN." Also in Inside Higher Ed:

.....You expected serious discussion of higher education on the campaign trail? Sen. Barack Obama is being attacked by some anti-immigration groups for suggesting that more Americans should learn to speak foreign languages. Obama is sticking with his position. Sen. John McCain, meanwhile, is being subjected to online analysis for his statement that the University of Southern California (his wife’s alma mater) is “the University of Spoiled Children.” Some observers think a little university-bashing may be good for the McCain campaign, some at USC aren’t amused, while still others are upset that Cindy McCain is being described as having been a cheerleader at the university when she was actually a “song girl.”

• IN SPAIN, A GREAT DAY FOR CHIMP RIGHTS. In yesterday’s New York Times: When Human Rights Extend to Nonhumans:

.....The Times reports a “vote of the environment committee of the Spanish Parliament last month to grant limited rights to our closest biological relatives, the great apes — chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.”
.....Evidently, the committee was reflecting the principles of Peter Singer and Paola Cavalieri’s “Great Ape Project,” “which points to apes’ human qualities, including the ability to feel fear and happiness, create tools, use languages, remember the past and plan the future.”
.....According to the Times, the bill, which is likely to pass, will make it illegal in Spain to kill apes. Further, “Torture, including in medical experiments, and arbitrary imprisonment, including for circuses or films, would be forbidden.”
.....And, no, Spain will not be granting chimps the right to drive or vote.
.....Naturally, the scientific community (at least that part that uses chimps to study AIDS) are mighty upset. Singer says that scientists need to explain why they don’t use a better study model: humans. “Why apes?”, he asks.
.....And the church is pretty peeved. Spain’s Catholic bishops “attacked the vote as undermining a divine will that placed humans above animals.”
.....The Times writer relates a personal story:

.....Ten years ago, I stood in a clearing in the Cameroonian jungle, asking a hunter to hold up for my camera half the baby gorilla he had split and butterflied for smoking. ¶ My distress … struck him as funny. “A gorilla is still meat,” said my guide, a former gorilla hunter himself. “It has no soul.” ¶ So he agrees with Spain’s bishops….

Without data, we have only a bloke

"A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

—Chuckles the Clown

.....Now, lots of folks in academia claim to teach "argumentation"—how to argue. But they aren't always teaching the same things.
.....It has long struck me as odd that, while philosophers teach their students that facts about an arguer are irrelevant (this is the essence of their teachings re the "ad hominem" fallacy), writing and speech instructors often seem to teach the opposite, for they make a great point of the importance, for the writer or speaker (the arguer), of presenting himself in a certain way: as reasonable, knowledgeable, etc.
.....The explanation of this difference, of course, concerns the different purposes these people have. The philosopher/logician seeks the truth and thus teaches students how to seek the truth. Hence, he focuses on evidence and reasons—what writing instructors call "logos" or the "logical appeal." He is not concerned with "pathos" or "ethos"—i.e., the emotional appeal or the appeal that derives from how the writer presents himself.
.....Writing instructors, however, are more about "effectiveness" (or persuasion) than truth, and so, for them, "logic" is just one tool among several. For instance, if you want to convince your readers of something—say, that John McCain is too addled to be President—then, assuming they aren't very logical (usually a safe assumption), you'd be a fool to offer mere logic. Reasons and evidence? Most audiences will become bored with that; they'll walk away. Better get out the blooper reel. (See Why we need rhetoric.)
.....Philosophers, as philosophers, are happy to have people walk away. They want to know the truth, and knowing the truth has nothing to do with having lots of eager listeners or readers. (Indeed, folks who seek the truth invariably become very nervous when their ideas become attractive to others.)
.....Roughly speaking, writing instructors are unhappy when the audience (or the "reasonable" among the audience) walks away. And so they spend a good deal of time talking about the importance of presenting yourself properly, i.e., effectively. (Ironically, writing and speech instructors can trace their body of theory to the writings of a philosopher/logician, but one who held audiences in low esteem. See Aristotle's rhetoric.)
.....Um, but if your readers buy that, they're committing a fallacy, right?
..... —Oh, absolutely. Great. Now show us Obama Girl!

.....Ben Oldacre’s “Bad Science” column this morning (in the Guardian) concerns what happens when audiences focus on how a speaker presents himself (ethos) without focussing on his evidence and reasons (logos):

Testing the plausibility effect:

.....You will remember, two weeks ago now, we saw the Sunday Express claiming on its front page that an impressive government adviser called Dr Roger Coghill had performed a research study demonstrating that the Bridgend suicide cases all lived closer to a mobile phone mast than average. When I contacted Coghill it turned out he wasn't really a government adviser, he said the Express had made a mistake in calling him a doctor, he had lost the data, and he couldn't even explain what he meant by average.
…
.....Without data, we have only a bloke. Week in, week out, we see apparently scientific claims being made in the newspapers with great confidence, as if they were based on evidence, when in reality they are based on nothing more than authority, and often from one man. This is because science is communicated to the public by journalists, who sometimes have no understanding of what it means for there to be evidence for an assertion. They are impressed by enthusiasm, long words, by a PhD, a white coat, or a medical qualification. [My emphasis.]
.....What if this is taken to an extreme? In 1973 a group of academics noticed that student ratings of teachers often seemed to depend more on personality than educational content. They wanted to find out how far this effect could be stretched: what if you had an impressive, charismatic and witty lecturer, who knew nothing at all about the subject on which they were lecturing?….
.....They hired a large, affable gentleman who "looked distinguished and sounded authoritative". They called him "Dr Myron L Fox" and he was given a long, impressive, and fictitious CV. Dr Fox was an authority on the application of mathematics to human behaviour.
.....They slipped Dr Fox on to the programme at an academic conference on medical education. His audience was made up of doctors, healthcare workers, and academics. The title of his lecture was Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education. Dr Fox filled his lecture and his question and answer session with double talk, jargon, dubious neologisms, non sequiturs, and mutually contradictory statements. This was interspersed with elaborate diversions into parenthetical humour and "meaningless references to unrelated topics". It's the kind of education you pay good money for in the UK.
.....The lecture went down well. At the end, a questionnaire was distributed and every person in the audience gave significantly more favourable than unfavourable feedback. The comments were gushing, and yet thoughtful: "excellent presentation, enjoyed listening", "good flow, seems enthusiastic", and "too intellectual a presentation, my orientation is more pragmatic".
.....The researchers repeated the performance. Time and again they got the same result….

My advice? Let's start teaching students what is relevant and what is not. We're drowning in illogic.

Philosophers/Logicians love this Monty Python bit: "the Argument Clinic":



.....“A second type of … argument is the speaker’s character, not only as established by his reputation, but also as conveyed in the speech itself. Most orators agree that one’s character is the most potent weapon in one’s rhetorical arsenal.”

—From A Brief Summary of Classical Rhetoric, made available to students at Harvard

[Thomas Hobbes] maintains that the establishment of ethos is an irrelevance not merely in the natural sciences…but in the moral sciences as well. His translation of Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric accordingly omits the entire section in which Aristotle speaks of the crucial importance of taking steps to make a good impression on one’s audience.

–From Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Quentin Skinner