The Solution: Educating Yourself on the Basics

Upon seeing how many Americans and Britons don't understand evolution and even reject its existence, Richard Dawkins took it upon himself to write a book that would bring the discussion back to its foundation. In The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, Dawkins strips the discussion to the basics and then shows what sorts of evidence would have to be present to show that evolution has taken place. From there he builds the indisputable case that evolution is a fact and that to deny otherwise requires a level of cognitive dissonance, not skepticism.

Dawkins would know about skepticism when it comes to evolution. He has been one of the central authors in changing the way the mechanisms of evolution have been understood. He, like many, identify that Darwin had a good start, but that Origin of Species is far from a complete accounting of the complexity that is evolution (nor was that Darwin's goals). At Utah State University, they offered a course in which you read Origin of Species and identified what things Darwin got right and other areas where he was off the mark.

Until people take the same intellectually curious approach that great scientists take to big issues, we will continue to have moral politics and biblical debates where policy discussions and mutual respect should be.

The Problem: Debating an Issue You Don't Understand

Kirk Cameron, the actor turned wacky evangelical, is back peddling his overstated and horribly confused wares. A recent video release by himself and Ray Comfort, author of one of the most poorly written books I have ever read, have teamed up again to take their version of evangelism to a whole new level of absurdity. The video itself is hilarious. Kirk sitting backwards in a chair (what is this a 90s PSA?) making absurd statements about how evolution is the antithesis of Christianity and that Darwin's ideas played a key role in Nazi crimes against humanity. Now I can fathom how evolution makes people who believe the earth is 6,000-10,000 years old uncomfortable, but to make such blatantly untrue and egregious statements is just irresponsible.

Their awesome plan is to take Darwin's original treatise on evolution (which is now part of public domain) and put in a 50 page "special introduction." It appears to be special in the same way people call their dog that can't stop running into walls, "special." They will then hand these out at campuses across the U.S. in an attempt to debunk the "myth of evolution." Now handing out a free copy of Origin of Species is all well and good, but to put in 50 pages of conservative evangelical babble serves no one. People that would even CONSIDER reading the 50 page special introduction would NEVER read Origin of Species, and vice-versa. Cameron's and Comfort's narrow, ignorant, and inaccurate understanding of reality indicates clearly that neither have read the original text that they will be giving away, nor have they read any modern works on evolution. Anyone looking at the evidence, religious or non-religious, with an appreciation of rules of evidence and the scientific method cannot but identify the facts of evolution and how it has given rise to our current biodiversity. To claim otherwise is to simply ignore the vast historical literature and on-going scientific work in any field related to biology.

Filibuster: Moderating Force or Minority Tyranny?

I recently ready an interesting article that argued that the Senate filibuster should be abolished. While not necessarily the most important issue on its own, the author linked it to wider issues of fairness and democracy (and to the current health care reform). While he didn't touch on numbers, it re-energized my concerns about about the massive power rural states have in the Senate. To me, reforming the filibuster would be one possible small step toward making the Senate more democratic. These rurual states would be amongst the first to fight such a measure.

In my undergrad, I grappled with the issue of the Senate being undemocratic in the sense that its votes are not proportional to state population (as the House is, though not completely). The filibuster increases this undemocratic leaning by allow 41 senators, which could represent a small minority of Americans, to block a vote on nearly any issue. In a country of 304,059,724 (estimated as of July 2008), Senators representing the twenty states with the lowest population plus one senator from the 21st lowest population state could conceivably hold nearly any bill from ever receiving a vote. Seven of these states have less than a million residents, eight have between one and two million residents, and the final five each have less than three million residents. The 21st state, Iowa, has just over three million residents. Combined, the population of these twenty states, plus half of Iowa, adds up to 32,637,771 or just over ten percent of the U.S. population. The fact that nearly 90 percent of the population can be outvoted by this small minority clearly indicates that at the very least dissolution of the filibuster is something to consider, if not wider reform of the system for electing Senators.

Luckily, getting rid of the filibuster simply requires a majority vote, while any larger Senate reform would likely require amending the U.S. Constitution. Some will argue that the filibuster has been used in the past to moderate debate and force compromise. They will say that despite its undemocratic nature, it provides some protection from majority tyranny. While I accept that protection of the rights of the minority are fundamental under any legitimate democracy, requiring super-majorities to even be able to vote on a bill often hampers the policy-making process through allowing powerful lobbyists to influence the votes of a few against the will of the many.

Social Determinants of Ignorance

In a very disconcerting sign of the times, a recent poll found that nearly half of Americans were accepting the fear mongering and fallacious charges against health care reform. One of the most concerning findings was that forty-five percent of respondents thought that the current health care reform proposal would likely "allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly." While I am aware that this charge is out there, I assumed (wrongly, as usual) that any responsible person would try to verify this extreme and dangerous claim.

This got me thinking more broadly about how easily the public is misled and where this comes from. I have heard many people blame the individuals themselves for their ignorance on these issues; and I will admit I do have some sympathy for that view. However, taking a more sociological view, I am forced to look beyond the individual and examine the social nature of these misunderstandings. This brought me to some recent findings on beliefs about evolution.

The Pew Research Center recently released a study that contained some pretty depressing findings regarding the public's knowledge (or beliefs) regarding science. They found that eighty-seven percent of scientists agree with the statement that "Humans and other livinging things have evolved over time due to natural processes." For the general public this number dropped to a dismal thirty-two percent. In the study they also break down the findings demographically which provides some interesting insights and show clear social patterning across age, eductation, and religious beliefs or lack thereof. The social patterning and the clear lack of widespread scientific thinking amongst the majority of society speaks to something more structural than individual.

Part of the problem certainly lies within the education system, but clearly, many people who end up being scientists began in the same schools as those that will go on to believe Obama wants to kill your grandmother. Thus, improved education alone would likely only serve to close the gap somewhat. It would seem a more lasting solution would have to involve making scholarly and academic findings more approachable. Allowing people to be involved in education throughout their lives. Until Americans can tell the difference between a legitimate reliable source and the ramblings of conspiracy theorists, or fear mongers, we will continue facing these one-sided debates. Debates where the facts are on one side and anger, fear, and ignorance are on the other. I don't mean to belittle anyone's opposition to health care reform, as I have written previously about its inadequacies. However, a real, informed debate about health care simply isn't possible in the U.S. because the knowledge gap is so big. Providing people the tools to close that gap and setting up structures to do so would reap benefits far beyond the political sphere.

Health Care Reform Blues

With reform unlikely to happen before the August recess, the likelihood of reform becomes less clear. After swings in momentum both for and against reform over the past few months, it has been interesting to see how quickly some ideas have fallen away under pressure, and how others continue to be recycled and brought back to the fore. It seems likely that we will have some sort of "reform" at this point, in that a bill will likely be passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by Obama. The question is will there be any actual valuable reform to a problematic and burdensome system or will it merely push off necessary reforms for another decade or so.

I think one of the most interesting developments has been that the Republicans in both the House and the Senate have decided to drop developing their own bill, after promising to do so since the beginning of the reform effort. While I can understand the desire to focus all of their attention on the current resolution being discussed, it seems that they are only falling into the trap of being the "party of 'no'" label which has been wielded against them expertly during the current Congress.

I also think it is dangerous for the Republicans to place so much hope on the Blue Dog Democrats. While allies on some issues, they are, at the end of the day, still Democrats. They know they can only push so far before they overstep their power and incur undesirable repercussions (such as the bill being moved to the floor without a committee vote). The Blue Dogs may claim that they are the beacon of fiscal conservatives and small business, but there are many ways to allay their fears and still have a bill that will be faced with obstructionism by Republicans.

I am often surprised that the current bill, even in its most liberal versions, is itself a comprise; not necessarily a good one. Many Americans, rightly in my view, favor an even more robust public system than is currently written into any of the House or Senate versions of the bill being floated around. The high costs of care (as I have discussed in previous posts) are not simply due to the high-cost treatments or expenditure disparities. They are in large part due to the cost of "doing business" under a for-profit system of health care. One of the key advantages of a single-payer system is the sense of solidarity that it brings amongst those involved. When people are all paying into the same system, there is an acknowledgement that while some are paying more, it is often for the greater good.

One final point about perceptions of U.S. health care. It is often stated, without any support, that America has the best health care in the world and that people from other countries flock here due to long wait times elsewhere. However, both these characterizations are false; but more importantly, they indicate that the debate is simply focused on the wrong sets of issues. Even if the U.S. had the best health care in the world and people did come for care unavailable in their homelands, simply stated, the U.S. health care system is unsustainable. Right now our costs continue to rise much faster than either the economy or costs of living. As health care continues to eat up revenue, we will be forced to cut other programs to pay for the bloated and overpriced care we provide, while still having worse health outcomes (and worse quality of care, in many cases) than countries with cheaper, more sustainable systems. To pretend that the problem is only quality and access fails to address that it is the costs that will become increasingly prohibitive and untenable.

Political Poetry

I have been becoming more interested in political poetry as of late. I never had much interest in poetry but had come across a few poems in my undergrad that I had really enjoyed but never really followed up on. Some of my favorite authors have poetry but I never really dug into it. Lately, I have found that poetry can tell of human suffering and crushing inequalities in a way regular writing just cannot. Here are some highlights.

The Nobodies by Eduardo Galeano

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will
suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But
good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or
start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing. The
nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits,
dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the
police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them

Let American Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today-O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again-
The land that never has been yet-
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-
All, all the stretch of these great green states-
And make America again!

United Fruit Co. by Pablo Neruda

When the trumpet blared everything

on earth was prepared
and Jehovah distributed the world
to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other entities:
United Fruit Inc.
reserved for itself the juiciest,
the central seaboard of my land,
America's sweet waist.
It rebaptized its lands
the "Banana Republics,"
and upon the slumbering corpses,
upon the restless heroes
who conquered renown,
freedom, and flags,
it established the comic opera:
it alienated self-destiny,
regaled Caesar's crowns,
unsheathed envy, drew
the dictatorship of flies:
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,
Carías flies, Martínez flies,
Ubico flies, flies soaked
in humble blood and jam,
drunk flies that drone
over the common graves,
circus flies, clever flies
versed in tyranny.

Among the bloodthirsty flies
the Fruit Co. disembarks,
ravaging coffee and fruits
for its ships that spirit away
our submerged lands' treasures
like serving trays.

Meanwhile, in the seaports'
sugary abysses,
Indians collapsed, buried
in the morning mist:
a body rolls down, a nameless
thing, a fallen number,
a bunch of lifeless fruit
dumped into the rubbish heap.

(Translation by Jack Schmitt)

Militant by Langston Hughes

Let all who will
Eat quietly the bread of shame.
I cannot,
Without complaining loud and long.
Tasting its bitterness in my throat,
And feeling to my very soul
It's wrong.
For honest work
You proffer me poor pay,
for honest dreams
Your spit is in my face,
And so my fist is clenched
Today-
To strike your face.

A Must Read For Everyone

I just finished Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano. I am amazed at how much I learned from the book and how lyrical and engaging the entries were. Galeano takes on all of human history, and even a little pre-history, through short entries that engage with anything and everything: major events in human history, famous (and infamous) historical figures, great people whose names are now lost to history, etc. His populist approach and keen sense of history create a rich and engaging view of how things have changed over time but how discrimination, hate, and violence have always marred our actions. Heather and I were lucky enough to attend his reading the week the book came out a month or so ago. I have never seen the bookstore, Politics and Prose, so packed full of people (and they bring in some huge names for readings). Some excerpts from the book:

Brief History of Civilization

And we tired of wandering through the forest and along the banks of rivers.

And we began settling. We invented villages and community life, turned bone into needle and thorn into spike. Tools elongated our hands, and the hand multiplied the strength of the ax, the hoe, and the knife.

We grew rice, barley, wheat, and corn, we put sheep and goats into corrals, we learned to store grain to keep from starving in bad times.

And in the fields of our labor we worshipped goddesses of fertility, women of fast hips and generous breasts. But with the passage of time they were displaced by the harsh gods of war. And we sang hymns of praise to the glory of kings, warrior chiefs, and high priests.

We discovered the words "yours" and "mine," land became owned, and women became property of men and fathers the owners of children.

Left far behind were the times when we drifted without home or destination.

The results of civilization were suprising: our lives became more secure but less free, and we worked a lot harder.

Thales

Two thousand six hundred years ago in the city of Miletus, an absentminded genius named Thales liked to go for a stroll at night to gaze at the stars, and as a result he frequently fell into the ditch.

Perhaps by asking the stars, Thales discovered that death is not an end but a transformation, and that water is the origin and meaning of all life. Not gods, water. Earthquakes happen because the sea moves and disturbs the land, not becasue of Poseidon's tantrums. The eye sees not by divine grace, but by reflecting reality the way the river reflects the bushes on its banks. And eclipses occur, not because the sun hides from the wrath of Olympus, but because the moon covers the sun.

Thales, who had learned to think in Egypt, accurately predicted eclipses, measured with precision the distance of approaching ships on the high seas, and calculated the exact height of the Keops Pyramid by the shadow that it cast. One of the most famous theorems is attributed to him, as well as four more, and it is even said that he discovered electricity.

But perhaps his greatest feat was of a different kind: to live godless, naked of any religious comfort, never giving an inch.

The Loser

He preached in the desert and died alone.

Simón Rodríguez, who had been Bolívar's teacher, spent half a century roving Latin America on the back of a mule, founding schools, and saying what no one wanted to hear.

A fire took nearly all his papers. Here are a few of the words that survived.

• On independence:

We are independent but not free. Something must be done for these poor people, who have become less free than before. Before, they had a shepherd king who did not eat them until they were dead. Now the first to show up eats them alive.

• On colonialism of the mind:

Europe's know-how and the prosperity of the United States are for our America two enemies of freedom of thought. The new republics are unwilling to adopt anything that does not have their stamp of approval... If you are going to imitate everything, imitate orgininality!

• On colonialist trade:

Some think prosperity is seeing their ports filled with ships - foreign ships and their homes turned into storerooms for goods - foreign goods. Every day brings another load of manufactured clothes, down to the caps the Indians wear. Soon we shall see little golden packages bearing the royal coat of arms containing 'newly processed' clay for children accustomed to eating dirt.

• On popular education:

To make students recite by rote what they do not understand is like training parrots. Teach children to be curious so they learn to obey their own minds rather than obeying authorities the way the narrow-minded do, or obeying custom the way the stupid do. He who knows nothing, anyone can fool. He who has nothing, anyone can buy.

Criminology

Every year, chemical pesticides kill no fewer than three million farmers.

Every day, workplace accidents kill no fewer than ten thousand workers.

Every minute, poverty kills no fewer than ten children.

These crimes do not show up on the news. They are, like wars, normal acts of cannibalism.

The criminals are on the loose. No prisons are built for those who rip the guts out of thousands. Prisons are built as public housing for the poor.

More than two centuries ago, Thomas Paine wondered:

"Why is it that scarcely any are executed but the poor?"

Texas, twenty-first century: the last supper sheds light on the cellblock's clientele. Nobody chooses lobster or filet mignon, even though those dishes figure on the farewell menu. The condemned men prefer to say goodbye to the world with the usual: burgers and fries.