Digital Bits Skeptic

Podcast: Download

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1350

2009 has been an interesting year for skeptics.

Our skeptical partners-in-crime are busier than ever: late in 2008, Phil Plait took over as president of the James Randi Educational Foundation, but after a presidency lasting about a year, Phil passed on the reigns to D.J. Grothe. The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe continued their dual missions: 1) increase the prevalence and force of the skeptical mindset, and 2) put all other podcasts to shame.

Skepticism was all over the media: The TV show MythBusters continued busting things, and the last I heard from an interview of co-host Adam Savage, the shows ratings continue to climb. I wasn’t able to find any ratings info on a certain non-family-friendly show starring Penn & Teller, but the ratings can’t be that bad since the show is cranking through its seventh season.

Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” celebrated its 150th anniversary, facilitated communication shot back into prime time with the sad story of Rom Houben, and Newsweek fought back against pop culture healthcare scams with an intellectual attack on Oprah Winfrey. And, last in this non-exhaustive list, there is the 2009 H1N1 pandemic – You may call it alarmist. You may call it dangerous. But to me, it will always be “the swine flu”.

As for Digital Bits Skeptic? Website visitors will see we have a new logo – thanks to Dan for his design skills and time spent making it. Thanks to the financial efforts of subscribers, I was also able to get rid of annoying clutter by removing all ads from the website. For the fiction-reading skeptics out there (or rather, for their children), I’m in the middle of publishing a young adult mystery series called “The League of Scientists“.

Digital Bits Skeptic has been publishing since 2007. Since then, we’ve posted over 130 articles and podcasts. In 2009, Digital Bits Skeptic published 53 articles from 11 authors. I’d like to thank this year’s authors for working to write quality articles. Here they are (in first name alphabetical order):

Andy Kaiser

Diane Johnson

David Annis

James Lochbaum

Jeff Kilroy

Kevin Bridges

M Parrot

Navin Kumar

Nicholas Covington (2009′s most published author, with 8 articles!)

Nick Farrantello

Sandra L Hubscher

One cool feature I was able to implement for dbskeptic.com was the ability to dynamically list all articles by a particular author. So, if you have a favorite author, and want to see everything they’ve written, just click on any of the names above.

Top articles in 2009 (as measured by web statistics and comments left on the article)

Article ID #1310 – Spontaneous human combustion and “the wick effect”

Article ID #1315 – Sugar, acid and teeth

Article ID #136 – Why pick on religion? Why religion matters to the non-religious

Article ID #1322 – Evolution, the genetic code, and ‘message theory’: A response to Walter Remine

Standouts

Hardest phrase to pronounce award: Nicholas Covington, in article ID #1349, “Advanced apologizing: Proof of the existence of God”. The phrase is “theistic hypotheses“. YOU try saying it. Now say it again. Faster. Faster! Now imagine you’re recording it, and you know that people all over the Internet are going to hear it.

Most honest feedback award: This was from an email I received a few weeks ago, which offered some brutal but well-meaning advice. It said:

I don’t mean to offend but Andy Kaiser sounds like a robot (not the exciting kind of killer robot I like listening to).  He sounds like a robot that just hit a fantastic cycle of REM sleep and is trying to drag me into my subconscious by my toenails.

My response? My voice is really not that bad. In fact, if you think about it, it could be far, far worse. I know I’ll never end up narrating an IMAX movie, or have anything like the legendary vocal cords of Morgan Freeman or Patrick Stewart. Honestly, I know I’m a bad speaker, but hey, it’s the only voice I’ve got, and I’m working to get better. (Although I can do a pretty good Kermit the Frog.)

DBSkeptic’s plans for 2010

1) Kidnap Morgan Freeman. Force him to narrate all future podcasts. Refusal to cooperate will result in Andy Kaiser performing dramatic readings of “The Shawshank Redemption” as Kermit the Frog.

2) Increase traffic, readers and listeners. This will, I believe, be best accomplished by joint ventures, or “crossover campaigns”, to use marketing lingo. I’m working with the James Randi Educational Foundation as an author on their Swift blog. I’m also cross-promoting my “League of Scientists” book series with the JREF and DBSkeptic. I figure that way, all efforts will achieve more fans and more interest than any could get alone.

Life, as they say, goes on. It has indeed been an interesting year. Here’s hoping that skeptics continue to live in interesting times. I mean that in a good way, and not as an evil Chinese curse.

See you in 2010.

Podcast: Download

By Nicholas Covington
Article ID: 1349

Let’s examine the evidence for a god’s existence. Some arguments are well-known and very well covered, like the Problem of Evil, the First Cause Argument, the Argument from Design. Instead, let’s look at four lesser-known, overlooked oddities. Welcome to the strange world of religious apologizing.

1) “The common consent to God”

Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft offers the following argument for God’s existence: [1]

1. A belief in God—that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due—is common to almost all people of every era.
2. Either the vast majority of people have been wrong about this most profound element of their lives, or they have not.
3. It is most plausible to believe that they have not.
4. Therefore, it is most plausible to believe that God exists.

As Kreeft says, “the majority is not infallible.” Big groups of people can make mistakes. He concedes this point, citing the fact that once upon a time most of the world believed the sun revolved around the Earth, rather than the Earth revolving around the sun. However, people back in those days could directly experience the sun and Earth. But in the case of God, what exactly is it that people experience and possibly misinterpret?

This argument fails to convince me. For one thing, “belief in God” is not common to people of every era. Today, at least one third of the world’s population does not subscribe to any of the major monotheistic faiths. [2] It is my understanding that before the rise of Christianity (which covers almost all of human history), almost everyone was polytheistic or engaged in some form of nature worship. If Kreeft is right about the majority being an indicator of truth, he can’t also argue for the existence of God (with a capital ‘G’). His argument, if correct, actually supports polytheism!

Another big problem is when Kreeft attempted to refute the “majority is not infallible” objection. Kreeft admitted that ancient people misinterpreted their experiences and so came to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Apply this to present day religion: A religious worldview could simply be the result of misinterpreting reality.

Animism (personifying nature) seems to grow out of falsely attributing human characteristics to impersonal things (like regarding the moon as an “Earth Mother”). Polytheism appears to have grown out of animism, since the gods of ancient polytheistic religions were originally often just aspects of nature.

We human beings, in our modern monotheistic societies, still personify inanimate objects. This supports my theory that religion is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of reality. Have you ever seen someone get angry at their car because it won’t start? Have you ever seen someone plead with or threaten a faulty computer? Think about what this person was doing: She was personifying inanimate objects. How rational is it to get angry at something with no will of its own, an object utterly incapable of being persuaded by curses or violence? It isn’t rational. It makes no sense, unless this person believes, even subconsciously, that the inanimate object is actually animate.

2) “The singularity argument against God”

The “Big Bang singularity” is the moment, after we extrapolate backwards in time, when we see that the Big Bang was infinitely dense, infinitely hot and was so tiny it consumed no space at all. The singularity is a cosmic “division by zero” error, where physics and general relativity break down.

Philosopher Quentin Smith [3] says that the Big Bang singularity was a lawless, chaotic, and unpredictable state. In principle, it is impossible to predict whether such a thing could ever evolve life.

Smith argues that God would not create the universe this way: a life-creating God would not leave open the possibility of a lifeless universe.

There’s a flaw here. Since God is omnipotent, He could have created the Big Bang, and then miraculously intervened to ensure that it evolved to create life. But, Smith argues that God wouldn’t create a lifeless universe, then later change it to become a life-creating universe. Such an action, after all, could be called a mistake. God does not make mistakes (although we can bring up Noah’s Ark in another article).

The evidence that the Big Bang occurred is overwhelming. [4] But, one could deny that there was a Big Bang singularity. Some physicists, including Stephen Hawking, think this is the case. They no longer believe that there was a Big Bang singularity. Even though the Big Bang theory is correct, they say that the universe expanded from a very tiny point that wasn’t quite small enough to be a singularity. So, a theist could rationally maintain that the Big Bang singularity did not exist. It is for this reason that Smith’s argument fails.

3) “The idea of God was intelligently designed”

The physicist and philosopher René Descartes had a very strange argument for the existence of God. [5] Descartes observed that he had ideas of things. Where did those ideas come from? Descartes reasoned that some ideas came from within himself, and other ideas come from outside himself. He began to wonder where he obtained his idea of God. He reasoned that he could not have made it up, because no effect can be greater than its cause. The idea of God was much greater than he was. God is perfect and infinite. He was not. Descartes concluded that he could not have invented his idea of God, because he did not possess the greatness contained within the idea of God.

Since Descartes felt he could not have invented the idea of God himself, it must have come from outside. So then, what could have given him his idea of God? Once again, since no cause can be greater than its effect, no being less than God could have come up with the idea. The cause of the God concept must have been equal to or greater than God. No being can be greater than God – God is perfect and by definition can not be improved upon. So, the cause of Descartes’ God concept must have been equal to God.

Does ‘equal to God’ translate to ‘identical to God’? It would seem so, for how could a being of limited power come up with the idea of unlimited power? Using the same reasoning: How could a being of limited goodness come up with the idea of unlimited goodness? Whatever caused Descartes’ concept of God must have had all of the familiar attributes of God: omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omnipresence, and a being with all these attributes is, by definition, God. So, according to this theory, we have established that God caused Descartes to have the conception of God, and it follows that God must exist.

Did Descartes succeed in proving the existence of God? No.

Suppose I write a story about an author who was greater than any author on earth who had ever lived, including me. Using Descartes’ reasoning, I couldn’t have gotten the idea of such an author from observing the world, for by definition no living author would have been sufficient to inspire the idea of an author greater than all living authors. I also could not have created this idea myself, since the author is, by definition, greater than me. Where did I get such an idea?

I could never claim to have an utterly complete idea of what this author would be like. If I had a complete idea of this author, then I could write all of the books that he would write if he existed, because I would know exactly what he would write. Obviously, I cannot do that. If I could, I wouldn’t be writing articles for Digital Bits Skeptic. I’d be writing that author’s books so I could collect millions in royalties. My idea of this author must be some type of abbreviated representation of what the author is really like.

I agree with Descartes that I can’t have a complete understanding of the greatest author in the world, since I am not equal to or greater than the author and cannot observe such an author. However, is my intellect sufficient to come up with an abbreviated and incomplete mental representation? It would seem so, since coming up with the idea only requires being able to think of an author, and mentally ranking that author’s skill. Human beings certainly know what authors are, and what it means to be “greater than” something else. It is therefore within our power to combine those two concepts. Therefore, we can conceive of an idea that is greater than ourselves. Ask any science fiction writer. This fact completely destroys Descartes’ argument for God.

4) “The Big Bang argument for atheism”

Current observational evidence indicates that the universe began in a state of chaos and maximum entropy, maximum disorder. Quentin Smith argues that this is inconsistent with the hypothesis that God created the universe. He sums up his case better than I ever could:

“It is perfectly reasonable to expect a very good, wise, and powerful person to begin his creation in a very beautiful and magnificent way that exhibits an admirably high degree of naturally good order. ‘Complete chaos is just ugly,’ and a perfectly rational finite mind would predict that ugliness is not the very first thing that a good, all-powerful person would want to create. This expectation is so natural and obvious that the belief that the early universe contained the Garden of Eden persisted in Jewish and Christian thought for nearly two thousand years, requiring extensive scientific evidence to be falsified.

“This is why the current observational evidence [that the beginning of spacetime is a state of maximal chaos] falsifies theism. The theistic hypothesis is predictively unsuccessful and is explanatorily valueless, since ‘Because God created it’ is not an explanatorily informative answer to ‘Why is the first state of spacetime totally chaotic rather than ordered in a very beautiful and admirably good way?‘” [6]

I find Smith’s argument highly convincing.

Conclusion

It’s fascinating as I look at these peculiar arguments, and realize that religious philosophy is much broader than I thought. No longer must the debate be limited to reformulating old arguments. No, philosophers of each camp have the opportunity to come up with an argument that is truly novel, which could change the whole debate forever. This is one reason philosophy of religion is so exciting: the debate is like a sword fight with random variables that keep one guessing as to what will come next. Maybe a grenade will appear out of thin air and drop into the hand of one fighter, allowing him to settle the debate in his favor, once and for all. Or maybe it will blow up in his face.

Science is constantly delivering new facts to the philosophers, facts hardly imagined just a century ago. Those facts are the raw material for constructing new arguments, and those arguments are the raw material for deciding the winner of the fight, and the truth. En Garde!

REFERENCES

[1] http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm#19

Accessed 12/6/09

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_world_religions

Accessed 12/6/09

[3] Quentin Smith, “A Big Bang Cosmological Argument for God’s Nonexistence,” Faith and Philosophy, April 1992, Volume 9 No. 2, pp.217-237.

Accessed 12/5/09

[4] See chapter 9 in Nicholas Covington, Atheism and Naturalism (2009)

[5] For a good review of Descartes’ argument, I recommend Daniel Dennett, “Descartes’s Argument from Design,” The Journal of Philosophy, Volume CV, Number 7, July 2008, pp. 333-45.

Accessed 12/6/09

I also want to note that my reformulation of Descartes’ argument is ad lib and that I have added in my own thoughts and extensions in order to make Descartes’ argument as strong as possible, and further to illuminate some of Descartes’ thought.

[6] Quentin Smith, “Time Began with a Timeless Point” Published in God and Time: Essays on Divine Nature Edited by Gregory E. Gansall and David M. Woodruff, Oxford University Press, 2001.

Accessed 12/6/09

Podcast: Download

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1348

On October 9, 2009, NASA’s LCROSS mission (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) slammed a “Centaur” rocket into the moon, into a dark, ancient crater named “Cabeus”. After a silent explosion of moon guts, the rocket was destroyed. The resulting ejecta was huge, measuring six miles across. NASA then surveyed that moon plume, and found water. Even in the tiny section of the plume that the instruments could survey, they found about 27 gallons of water! H2O! Translucent gold!

By Earth standards, the moon is still extremely dry, about as dry as a desert. But, even a desert can still hold enough water to support life.

NASA’s LCROSS mission is the first indicator of significant amounts of water in Earth’s neighborhood. A critical person might say, “so what?” This is not the first discovery of water in outer space, or even on the moon. Other planets and moons contain ice, and perhaps liquid water, though we don’t yet know how much of what states there are.

The discovery of water on the moon is still very significant. Here’s why:

1) Knowledge: We add to the current store of scientific knowledge. It puts another piece in the puzzle of how the Universe works, how the moon formed, and ultimately helps us to improve the human condition.

2) Alien life: It provides additional evidence to the notion that life could exist outside of Earth. For those who believe life originated on Earth through a natural process, having a higher abundance of life-making ingredients increases the chances of there being alien life. What do we need for life? From our current understanding, we need water, carbon, and an energy source. Carbon is everywhere. We know that water is remarkably abundant. Energy sources abound (we’re not just talking about the sun). Get the right catalyst in place, and so-called miracles can happen.

3) Moon bases: When we get to the moon, we could “live off the land”. There are two significant aspects: Humans who live there could drink the local water. They could also move around the moon with vehicles powered by a hydrogen/oxygen fuel source, all extracted from available water. And, there’s another use for the oxygen: breathing! Fuel, water and life support are very expensive items to transport from the Earth to the moon. Having them already in place will make a moon base far easier to create and maintain.

4) Human life in off-world colonies: You don’t think a moon base is important? Well, it is. Right now, we Earthlings are horribly susceptible to complete extinction. Our entire species could easily be wiped out. Take your pick of any horrible natural disaster. Just ask the dinosaurs why they didn’t do anything about the fire from the sky, the killer rock that, so many millions of years ago, destroyed them all. There are also more embarrassing (but just as effective) ways to die, by killing off our own kind, something which we humans are perversely good at. In order to survive, we must spread the human species from off this planet.

Here’s a video, courtesy NASA, of the LCROSS mission and resulting lunar impact by the “Centaur” rocket. You can’t actually see the rocket hit the moon, but it’s still interesting to see the process to get the rocket to the moon itself:

The discovery of water on the moon is powerful, no doubt. Don’t just shuffle it aside as needless fact-gathering. This advance is just as important for scientific cheerleading as it is for powering future technology and off-planet living. This discovery doesn’t just tell us more about our celestial neighborhood. It also gives us the ability to not only know our place in the Universe, but to change it.

I can think of no better way to end this article than with this quote by Carl Sagan:

“The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.”

For those who really like the audio version of that quote, here’s the full video:

Podcast: Download

By Sandra L Hubscher
Article ID: 1347

Editor’s note: The author submitted this article with the following private message. It’s important enough that, with the author’s permission, I’m posting it here:

“I enjoyed writing this article in that I enjoy writing, but other than that, really I hated it. The subject is so irredeemably sad, and filled with anguish for so many, that I wouldn’t want to write something like this again anytime soon. It’s hard to imagine facing these parents and telling them these things. I know they’ve probably all heard it before and none of them will likely take the time to read this, but even if they’ve been slapped a hundred times before by this information, the 101st isn’t much lessened.”

Update 03/02/2010:

Months after the sensational news of Rom Houben’s ‘awakening’ via facilitated communication (FC) from a decades-long, traumatic brain injury-induced silence, there has come a retraction from his physician, Steven Laureys. After rigorous testing involving a number of facilitators and their clients, including Mr. Houben and his facilitator Linda Wouters, Dr. Laureys has declared:

“We did not have all the facts before. To me, it’s enough to say that this method [FC] doesn’t work.”

Three facilitators and their clients were involved in the testing, which was carried out by Dr. Laureys and others, including a Belgian skeptics group. In Mr. Houben’s case, he was shown or heard a list of 15 objects without his facilitator being present. When the facilitator was readmitted and Mr. Houben was asked to list the objects, there was not a single success.

It is important to note, as Belgian Skeptics pointed out, that this was not a test of Mr. Houben, but rather of the method of communication others have imposed on him. Mr. Houben’s brain scans reveal activity very much like that of an uninjured brain and many, including Dr. Laureys, continue to have hope that they will find a method for him to reach out and ‘speak’ to the world.

In November of 2009, a sensational story appeared out of Belgium: Rom Houben, a man who as a result of a catastrophic car accident had been in a persistent vegetative state for more than twenty years, was re-diagnosed as being fully conscious, indeed conscious for the whole twenty-plus years! Furthermore, he was now communicating to the world by typing on a large touch screen, giving words to the years of imprisonment in his own body.

The story twinges our imagination wonderfully and terrifyingly – entrapment in plain sight, helplessness, rescue and reunion – hope to all of those in dire circumstances. Immediate to the story’s release, another narrative developed among skeptics – unwitting deceit and good intentions gone awry. While the diagnosis by Steven Laureys, Houben’s neurologist, is best left to fellow neurologists, the technique of facilitated communication, the method used on Houben to bring his ‘words’ out of him by typing, is a well-studied and understood phenomenon,  and is, unfortunately, a fraud.

Facilitated communication, first developed in Australia in the 1970’s, has now spread worldwide and purportedly allows those with disorders like cerebral palsy, severe mental retardation, autism and others, to undertake the otherwise impossible task of communication.

How does this work? A facilitator holds the hand or arm of the impaired person or client, supposedly giving the strength and steadiness necessary for the client to type with a single finger, one letter at a time. A video of Houben, including his facilitated communication, can be seen here:

While it is possible that Houben’s facilitator is willfully perpetrating a heartless con, it is more likely in this case, and in all uses of facilitated communication, that the facilitator’s actions are attributable to the ideomotor effect. Familiar to anyone who’s seen a Ouija board in action, the ideomotor effect is defined as purposeful movement by a person not consciously aware of his movement. That is to say, when a person wishes a given outcome (a ‘yes’ answer on a Ouija board, for example), that person’s hand will move to produce that answer, without the person feeling any conscious movement.

Scientific testing of facilitated communication has disrobed the technique’s mystique and, unsurprisingly, double-blinded experiment has produced embarrassing failures among the facilitators. Information given to the client, with the facilitator blinded or absent, could not be later reproduced by the facilitator helping the client. Apologists to the technique claim that factors such as the duress imposed by doubters, who indirectly threaten to remove rights gained only by the impaired person’s communication, wreck the client’s performance and strain the special bond between facilitator and client. Skeptics reply that this is a common complaint of paranormalists who find they have failed under laboratory conditions and that, furthermore, impaired people who have attended college and given public speeches, all thanks to facilitated communication, should be already acclimatized to whatever stresses may be produced by testing.

Take the many professional associations such the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the Association for Behavior Analysis International, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, the Association for Science in Autism Treatment, and, most notably, the American Psychological Association. All have denounced facilitated communication, saying, for example, “facilitated communication is not a scientifically valid technique¹” and that “its use is unwarranted and unethical.²”

There are astonishing and inspiring cases, however, of individuals communicating with great difficulty and only with much assistance. Helen Keller, when first developing her communications skills, relied heavily on Annie Sullivan. One of the greatest living physicists of our time, Stephen Hawking, communicates through a computerized keyboard. Examples such as these are many, and clearly valid, but facilitated communication, unfortunately, is not valid.

Rom Houben’s case is a profoundly tragic one, whatever the outcome, and it is right and natural to sympathize with his family and understand their wish to have him returned to them, even if what’s returned is only his mind. But, good wishes do not make reality. Houben, whatever his mental state, is not communicating to the world – his helper is. Many parents have clung to this technique because it is the only thing that –supposedly – brings their children back to them. It may be tempting to retreat and keep silent, because the only outcome of skepticism is to, once again, take away these people’s loved ones by putting the muted fog of silence back over them.

Facilitated communication not only twists the real work that medical professionals must do to truly help impaired people, but it puts words into the mouths of those who, in other circumstances, would vociferously resent having an identity superimposed onto their own.

References

1. American Psychological Association. Council Policy Manual: M. Scientific Affairs. Part VI, Facilitated Communication.

2. Association for Behavior Analysis International. Statement on Facilitated Communication, 1995.

Podcast: Download

By Nicholas Covington
Article ID: 1346

I have just finished reading what is now one of my favorite books. At the time of this writing, it was published precisely 150 years ago. Ever since, it’s been a brilliant, revolutionary, and even dangerous work. The book I read is “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” by Charles Darwin. I cherish this book for many reasons: Because I am an outspoken defender of Darwin’s ideas, because of the careful reasoning and observation Darwin showed in the book, because of the joy in learning about how living things came to be, because of the fascinating and airtight case Darwin had for evolution (even in spite of his ignorance of genetics and the meager fossil record of the time), and because this book has so much relevance today, even though it was written a century and a half ago.

Darwin’s conjectures

The ideas presented in Origin of Species are many, yet there are three which I believe stand out most and which constitute Darwin’s key insights:

1) The Common Ancestry of Life: The millions of living things alive today are descended from “a few forms or one”.

2) Natural Selection: This is the primary mechanism which caused living things to evolve from their ancestral states.

3) Splitting: The single illustration in Origin of Species [see below] shows how Darwin believed that lineages “split” into two or more new lineages again and again over the course of evolution. The dividing of lineages must have occurred if one or a few original species evolved into the millions of species we see today. Darwin suggested that geographical separation for many generations might contribute to organisms splitting into different lineages which would then, after much time had passed, be unable to interbreed.

Natural Selection

Darwin began his illustration of natural selection with a familiar analogy: Artificial selection, or selective breeding. Breeders select the best variety of their stock for breeding because they hope that the next generations will inherit the good characteristics of those individuals. The breeders can then alter their stock over the course of generations. Darwin said, “Breeders frequently speak of an animal’s organization as something plastic, which they can model almost as they please.”

Darwin gives several examples of natural selection: Gooseberries, for example, have been getting bigger over generations. This is fairly trivial, yet Darwin’s great insight was that selective breeding can happen without a breeder. Nature does her own breeding. Here’s how it happens: All living things tend to leave behind lots and lots of offspring. Darwin found that 100 heads of red clover produced 2,700 seeds! Obviously, all of these offspring don’t survive. There are too few resources and too little room on planet Earth for this radical increase in population to continue indefinitely. Most offspring don’t make it. There is competition between members of the same species, and losses from predators and the environment. Since many variations occur in plants and animals, it is probable that variations occur which are useful to the organism. The variation gives the organism a higher chance of survival.

Since it is a well-established fact that children tend to inherit the characteristics of their parents, we infer that organisms with beneficial variations will pass them on to their children. Their children will also have an increased chance of survival, and therefore an increased chance of getting to reproduce. So, varieties of plants and animals which have beneficial variations will, on average, leave behind more offspring than organisms without them. This occurs generation after generation until the entire species consists of only organisms with that favorable variation. This is how plants and animals evolve and become better adapted to their environments.

Common Ancestry

Darwin conjectured that all life had evolved from “one or a few” original forms. There are four main evidences supporting this: Homology, Geographical Distribution, Embryology, and Rudimentary (or Vestigial) Structures.

Homology

Darwin said, “[W]e can hardly believe that the similar bones in the arm of a monkey, in the fore-leg of the horse, in the wing of the bat, and in the flipper of the seal, are of special use to these animals. We may safely attribute these structures to inheritance.”

In other words, take a look at the similarities in the structure and arrangement of the flipper of a seal, the leg of a horse, the wing of a bat, and the arm of a monkey. Darwin explained these as being inherited from the common ancestor of these animals, with slight modifications for each animal.

Geographical Distribution

Darwin noticed that animals living in the caves of America and Europe did not resemble each other as much as they resembled animals that lived in the surrounding country.

If a Creator had made the animals in the European and American caves, wouldn’t he have made the cave creatures all the same, since they lived in the same basic habitat? Why aren’t they the same? It doesn’t make sense, unless you know Darwin’s theory: American cave animals look more like American animals because the American cave animals are descended from non-cave dwelling American animals. European cave animals look like European non-cave animals because European cave animals are descended from European animals living in the surrounding country.

This explanation also works for the flora and fauna of oceanic islands. These islands, even though being similar to one another in climate, always have flora and fauna more similar to the nearest continent than to other oceanic islands. Evolution explains it perfectly: the reason is because species on oceanic islands are descended from species on the mainland. Moreover, Darwin explained that the reason Oceanic islands are almost always devoid of amphibian life is because salt water kills amphibian eggs and spawn. The only animals on these islands are those which could have made their way there naturally. Perhaps these facts seem trivial, but they’re important in the creation/evolution debate: if one admits that oceanic island species are descended from species on the mainland, then one must admit that evolution of new species has occurred, because species on the islands aren’t always the exact same species that live on the mainland.

Embryology

Darwin says, “It deserves notice that it is of no importance to a very young animal, as long as it remains in its mother’s womb or in the egg, or as long as it is nourished and protected by its parent, whether most of its characters are acquired a little earlier of later in life.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Darwin notices that the early larval stages in crustaceans and the early embryo stages in vertebrates show a lot of similarity. This similarity may be explained by common ancestry: These embryos don’t acquire their specially-evolved characteristics until later in development because they don’t need to. It is of no importance to survival. So embryos might start out developing the way their ancestors developed and not develop any newly-evolved features until it becomes necessary for survival. If vertebrates share a common ancestor, this would explain the deep similarities seen in vertebrate development. It would explain why whale embryos develop teeth and hair, why some snakes begin to develop legs and then reabsorb them later on in development, why human beings develop a hairy coat called the lanugo which is later shed, and so on.

Rudimentary Structures

Darwin noticed that some flightless beetles still had wings. Darwin explained this as a holdover from the beetle’s ancestry: the flightless beetle evolved from flying beetles, and the wing, which was no longer used, gradually became smaller until it was no longer prominent, or was less prone to cause injury. Rudimentary structures are found in abundance in nature: the wings of flightless birds, the eyestalks of blind cave crustaceans that no longer have eyes, the pelvis and hind leg bones of the boa constrictor, the rudimentary tailbone and hair of a human. Those rudimentary structures are easily understood as leftovers of an evolutionary past.

Difficulties with Darwin’s theory

One remarkable thing is that Darwin answered questions about evolution which are still today parroted by creationists as if they had never been answered. Often you will hear a creationist bring up “the eye being an organ of such complexity and perfection that it could not have originated through natural selection”. Darwin soundly refuted that contention: he showed there were many intermediate eyes in the animal kingdom of varying complexity and ability to detect light. The lancelet, for example, simply has a “little sack of transparent skin, furnished with a nerve and lined with pigment, but destitute of any other apparatus.” From simple to complex, there are many eyes in the animal kingdom, each of which is useful to its possessor. It would merely take natural selection and random variation to evolve a better and better eye.

Take the old creationist chestnut, “If people came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?” Darwin answers this, though in an abstract form. He poses the same question with different wording, “Why have not the more highly developed forms everywhere supplanted and exterminated the lower?”

He answers, “On our theory the continued existence of lowly organisms offers no difficulty; for natural selection, or survival of the fittest, does not necessarily include progressive development – it only takes advantage of such variations as arise and are beneficial to each creature under its complex relations of life.”

Chimps and humans are different because their ancestors lived in different environments and were subject to different selective pressures. For example, human ancestors lived on the savanna, where there were few trees, and where it was more efficient to walk upright. The chimp ancestors lived in the forest, in the trees, where the human’s physical advantages were not needed.

The same can be said of all other creatures: Unicellular organisms have stayed unicellular because they were never under a selective pressure where it was advantageous to become multicellular.

Darwin also addresses challenges to the fossil record. He poses the question, “The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed [between fossil and living species], must be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation… full of such intermediate links?”

Darwin calls this, “The most obvious and serious objection” to his theory. Yet he understood that the fossil record was poor: Many fossil species, he says, are known only by a single specimen, which is often not even a complete fossil. Fossilization is rare, and with soft-bodied animals it is especially uncommon. Furthermore, there are many processes that destroy geological formations, and with them, the fossils that those formations contain. Bearing these things in mind, one would not expect a perfect fossil record.

Since Darwin’s time, this objection to his theory has been answered in a more powerful way, with advanced tools and techniques not available 150 years ago. True, the fossil record is not perfect, but there are many, many sequences of fossils which beautifully illustrate evolutionary transitions.

Conclusion

Origin of Species is a fascinating book in so many ways: it is beautiful to see someone carefully and critically making observations and deducing the truth. It is astonishing to see the solid case that Darwin had for evolution in spite of his ignorance of genetics and the meager fossil evidence available in his day. It’s ironic that some continue to make the same arguments against evolution without knowing that Darwin refuted them 150 years ago. It’s inspiring to know that we are the only species to discover the truth about our ultimate origins, and devastating to realize that most continue to reject it, despite the evidence. I’ll end this review with the final words from Origin of Species, which I consider to be the most profound and poetic words ever published in any book on natural history:

“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Podcast: Download

Editor’s note #1: This article contains spoilers about The Flight of Dragons movie.

Editor’s note #2: This article uses many audio clips from The Flight of Dragons. To fully appreciate this article, listen to the podcast or use the above audio player.

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1345

“Look down there, Gorbash my friend. On that troubled earth below us, confusion and chaos reign. All mankind is facing an epic choice. A world of magic, or a world of science.

Which will it be?”

The movie “The Flight of Dragons” begins with that brief monologue, spoken by wizard to dragon. The rest of the movie answers the question while providing great entertainment.

When I say “entertainment”, though, I don’t mean all sunshine and flowers. The next scene in the movie is of a swan, paddling down a river. A few tiny fairies hop on the swan for a ride. Suddenly, in the river ahead, there appears a gigantic waterwheel, spinning fast to power a mill in a nearby house. The swan can’t escape the waterwheel’s current, and swan and fairies are sucked underneath and killed.

Here we have an eerie visual of one of the movie’s themes: Magic versus science. Will one destroy the other? Which one? Can they possibly coexist?

“The Flight of Dragons” takes place in a world of magic – where wizards ride dragons as casual transportation, where magic does exist – and it’s powerful – but it bows to the will of science.

The movie is primarily about a quest involving four wizard brothers. Three are good. One is bad. You may recognize the evil red wizard “Ommadon” as voiced by James Earl Jones, also the iconic voice of Darth Vader.

The wizards argue whether or not they and their world can coexist with magic.

One wizard proposes building “The Last Realm of Magic”, in order to hide from the physical world and safeguard what magic remains. The evil wizard Ommadon disagrees.

This scene is even more powerful and takes on more meaning when you see it with the video. Those last words, where Ommadon says, “I’ll teach [Man] to fly like a fairy!” are spoken to a visual of a slowly spinning nuclear bomb.

“The Flight of Dragon” movie’s main plotline is simple – in order to stop Ommadon, the good wizards try to steal his magical crown, the source of all the red wizard’s power.

Peter Dickinson and The Flight of Dragons

Yet, the surrounding themes are not so simple. To find a hero, the wizards are told by an oracle to recruit an unusual choice: the long-distant relative of “Great Peter, the Dragonmaster”, seven hundred and seventy-seven generations removed from the original. Why this particular descendant? Because, the oracle says, this man is the first of the decendents who is a man of science.

Later, this comes in very important.

The man is Peter Dickinson. He lives in the late twentieth century. We see a flash-forward to the future – it appears to be the late 1970s or so, which makes sense – the movie was released in 1982. We see Peter Dickinson talking to a pawn shop owner, and find that not only is Dickinson a dragon fanatic, he’s also written a book, called “The Flight of Dragons”.

Here’s a spot where this supposed kid’s movie breaks convention. There really is a Peter Dickinson. He really does love dragons. He really did write a book called “The Flight of Dragons”, in which he attempts to show how dragons could’ve existed, flew and breathed fire. We get to see this detail in the movie, as our hero analyzes dragons and develops a scientific theory of how dragons fly!

Through some magical hijinks, Dickinson is transported into a dragon’s body and mind, and there he remains for most of the movie. It’s fun watching him try to figure out dragon-flight and dragon-life, and it gives the magical quest a new level of difficulty.

While “The Flight of Dragons” book is non-fiction, the movie is very close adaptation, and not just in the book’s subject matter. The artwork, particularly the background images, the wizards’ towers, the dragon designs, they all pay homage to the book itself.

Click here for the DBSkeptic article about “The Flight of Dragons” book.

The showdown between magic and science

If you remember only one thing from this movie, it will be the ending. Never before have I seen the battle between science and magic fought so well, and so literally.

There is a final showdown between the scientist Dickinson and the evil wizard Ommadon.

It starts off as the audience discovers how Dickinson managed to escape from his dragon body.

(James Earl Jones, by the way, has the best evil laugh you’ll ever hear.)

Then the final battle begins. Ommadon transforms into a disgustingly hideous multi-headed combination of man and dragon. He taunts Dickinson, saying that he’s so powerful, he can even “reach into the sky and pluck down the sun”. Dickinson – and science – disagree.

Then Ommadon pulls out the big magical guns and begins to chant some Latin-sounding incantations. He attacks Dickinson, who responds with a lethal counter-attack with science and logic.

And, it’s over. Almost. What “The Flight of Dragons” teaches us is that magic isn’t gone. Science hasn’t destroyed it, because we’ve taken magical concepts and – through technology – turned them into reality.

Another point is that unquantifyable things – things like emotions and imagination and dreams – those are magic. Knowing how or why something works doesn’t take away its magic. In fact, I’d argue one appreciates it all the more.

The movie works on multiple levels. We have a children’s adventure tale, about a magical quest, clearly defined good and evil and, of course, dragons.

There’s another level, one that warns against the dangers of science, how technological advancement leads to abuse and increased evil. (It’s interesting to note that the Ommadon character does some pretty horrific things himself, all with magic, not science.) Magic, the movie alludes, could be just another tool. It’s not about science or magic being inherently good or evil. It’s about the person using it.

Yet another level talks about humankind’s motivation to improve itself. Why do we advance ourselves? Is it fear of the unknown? Do we seek to fight and conquer that which scares us? Or is it more altruistic and less egotistical, and is a desire to use technology to make life better?

The animation in “The Flight of Dragons” is of the pre-computer, hand-drawn kind, done by Rankin-Bass productions. They also animated the 1977 version of “The Hobbit”, and created perhaps the most famous holiday special of all time, the stop motion “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. The screenwriter for all these – including “The Flight of Dragons” – was a talented man named “Romeo Muller“. Sadly, he died in 1992, and I’m unable to find much information about him.

The movie “The Flight of Dragons” is very distinctive and visually is done very well. In the many action scenes, or even the incendental scenes, the music is powerful and memorable. The movie’s theme song is sung by Don McLean, the artist who wrote the classic song “American Pie”. You’ve got James Earl Jones as the bad guy, John Ritter as the good guy, and other voice talents who play their parts perfectly.

I was too young to fully appreciate this movie when it came out, and I have no idea how popular it was back in the 1980s. Since I never hear it mentioned today, I assume it faded quietly into animation history. It shouldn’t, though. The Flight of Dragons movie – like its theme of magic being tied to mankind itself – can not and should not be allowed to disappear.

Where can you find “The Flight of Dragons”? The original is long out of print. For my own copy, I was lucky enough to record it from TV to VHS when I was a kid, and have since copied that recording to DVD. The rest of you are in luck, though: Clips of the movie are online in the usual places, as well as the full movie itself, though I’m guessing most of those full movie distributions are illegal. But for the purists, by the time this article is published, “The Flight of Dragons” will be re-released by the Warner Brothers “Warner Archive” brand. That means we can legally purchase the DVD, so yes: The Flight of Dragons DVD is available for purchase!

If you’re going to show “The Flight of Dragons” to children, be aware there are scary scenes with scary creatures. Yes, there is death – several of the main characters die – and not all of them are magically resurrected.

It’s a strange but inevitable thing: as I get older, I still watch movies and read books, but I have a harder and harder time suspending my disbelief. I have no such problem with The Flight of Dragons. It’s a world of magic, yet it’s believable because it still follows the rules of physics. It has great characters, all of them unique and engaging. It’s got a complex plot and adult themes, yet still, in the end, is a great adventure.

At the beginning of the movie, “The Flight of Dragons” says, “A world of magic, or a world of science. Which will it be?”

If we allow “magic” to evolve beyond superstition, beyond the unexplained, beyond what the movie calls “mere illusion”, the answer doesn’t have to be one or the other. Science or magic? No. We can have both.

Podcast: Download

By Andy Kaiser
Article ID: 1344

Hi everyone, Andy Kaiser here.

The majority of people who visit Digital Bits Skeptic are – you’ll be shocked to know – mostly skeptics. Many of us here have related interests in critical thinking, in science, and in wondering about how the world works. This is just a guess, but it’s an educated one; these topics often go hand-in-hand.

It is with this shared interest that I’d like to introduce you to my latest project, a book called “The League of Scientists”. If the book is successful, we’ll take it to a series. The full title for this first book is “The League of Scientists and the Ghost in the Water”.

The League of Scientists stars several science-minded young adults. They use their knowledge along with skepticism and critical thinking to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries.

Kinda like what a lot of skeptics do, isn’t it?

This is a “real” book – it’s not from a print-on-demand company or a vanity press. It’s been accepted by a traditional book publisher (Science, Naturally!), and I’m working with an editor to finish, edit and get it published. You’ll eventually be able to find it in big bookstores near you, and of course at the usual online places.

I’m telling you about The League of Scientists because investigating our world and exploring mysteries with science and critical thought is important to a lot of skeptics. It is to me – that’s why I’m writing the book. (And knowing a little bit about the publishing industry, believe me, it’s not for the money.)

If you’d like to know more, visit LeagueOfScientists.com. The book isn’t available yet – the writing, editing, promotion and publishing process takes a while, particularly for a new, unproven writer like me – but, I wanted to get the word out to start driving interest. The sooner the better, because, well, it’s a lot of work and it takes a while.

If you have kids, and if they like science and mysteries, go to LeagueOfScientists.com, visit the “Info” page, and sign up for email updates. I’ll let you know as I make progress on the book, and you’ll of course be notified when it’s available for purchase.

If you are a young adult, and want to know more – anything from questions on the publishing process to The League of Scientists characters and story – let me know. This is my first experience working with a book publisher, but I’m happy to share what I know.

And I’ll share more League of Scientists updates as they occur. Stay tuned.

Podcast: Download

By James Lochbaum
Article ID: 1343

For the United States, there is probably no other weapon as symbolic of today’s conflicts as the Improvised Explosive Device, or IED. Up until 2007, IEDs were responsible for 63% of U.S. casualties in Operation Iraqi Freedom (1).  They have also been implemented by belligerents in Afghanistan, a place previously devoid of these weapons.

To counter IEDs, the U.S. and other coalition forces have turned to traditional Third Generation Warfare strategies.  New Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (or MRAPs) are designed and put into production, existing vehicles are upgraded with additional armor plating, troops are issued more ballistic vests and trauma plates, and electronic jammers are installed. While training and doctrine have been altered, the response to these devices has mainly been to field more heavily armored hardware.

One of the world's most effective Main Battle tanks, the M1 Abrams

This approach seems to work. In 2004, when specially-designed MRAPs were first used by the U.S. Marine Corps, they reported no casualties in over 300 IED attacks involving the new vehicles (2).  But, the success of this “up-armor” approach has been severely distorted.  It is seen as a strategy for victory, when really it only treats a symptom of the conflicts we face.

The IEDs are a symptom – and not the root cause – of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  An IED is simply a way for an insurgent or guerilla to attack a mechanized, first-world military. U.S. and NATO forces are vulnerable to IED attacks because of their mechanized nature, and their heavy logistics footprints.  (A logistics footprint refers to the amount of logistic support required in proportion to the size of the actual fighting force.)

This is a vulnerability for developed nations involved in counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. Opponents in these types of conflicts rarely attack the “warfighter” directly. For example, the U.S. fields one of the world’s most effective Main Battle tanks, the M1 Abrams. An insurgent in Iraq or Afghanistan will have a hard time matching the firepower or armor that an Abrams brings to the fight, although an alarming number of tanks are being taken out of action by IEDs (4).

A clever opponent can neutralize the tank’s combat power by defeating its logistics footprint. How? The Abrams burns about 12 gallons of fuel an hour just with the engine idling. When moving, its gas mileage is measured in feet, not miles (3). For a company of tanks to conduct operations (that’s about 12 tanks), they must be supplied with at least 144 gallons of fuel per hour just to idle. Fuel must obviously be transported to the same place as the tanks.

Fuel is just one resource required by the tank. We haven’t even mentioned spare parts, ammunition, lodgings and supplies for the crew.

An opponent that seeks to neutralize the tank’s combat effectiveness should strike its fuel supply (or any one of a dozen other logistics trains that delivers necessary supplies). This is where the “up-armor” doctrine begins to surface. As enemies attack the logistics train, the U.S. reaction has been to consistently apply more armor and more defensive systems to existing equipment, and to implement new, heavily armored vehicles. What has never taken place is a good hard look at what those logistics vehicles are delivering and why they are needed.

Let’s go back to the example of the tank. The Abrams Main Battle Tank has incredibly tough armor, a powerful main gun (105/120mm), and sophisticated optics and gear that allows it to do all kinds of ridiculous things that would have made it a Soviet General’s nightmare. But, the ability to engage targets with a gyroscopically stabilized main gun while moving isn’t as effective when those targets are blending with the local population. This particular tank has severe limitations in the battle-spaces in which it’s currently employed. Yet, despite this, the U.S. Army deployed over 1,100 of the vehicles in Operation Iraqi Freedom (4).  This actually causes more casualties – vehicles must be used to transport supplies to the tanks, putting more troops in harm’s way.

Armored vehicles have another severe limitation that makes them ill-suited to counter-insurgency operations: the lack of mobility. In creating a vehicle with enough armor to resist IEDs, we have inadvertently created a vehicle that can only travel in areas where those IEDs are most likely to be encountered. This smacks of attrition, a strategy that the U.S. military establishment ostensibly condemns, especially in counter-insurgencies. Furthermore, the MRAP vehicles were designed with the Iraq conflict in mind. Iraq, a mostly flat country with a very urban enemy, is crisscrossed by roads through most of its populated areas. Contrast to Afghanistan, which has only one major road, and in the many mountainous areas, there are no developed surfaces to travel on. That terrain is a nightmare for top-heavy MRAP vehicles.

The bases that are maintained in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan have huge logistical foot-prints (5). Many of these bases, such as Camp Ramadi in Iraq and Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, have restaurants such as Pizza-Hut and Subway.  This puts a needless tax on the logistics train, requiring more convoys and giving the enemy more chances to attack.

Heavy armored vehicles are not always a bad thing. There is something about heavy armor and big guns that makes an enemy think twice about attacking one’s forces. But, they can easily become liabilities in counter-insurgency operations. They do have their uses, but the U.S. military has developed an almost exclusive reliance on these vehicles. What needs to be pursued more actively are lighter, more mobile and longer range vehicles; a more streamlined logistics system (no more Pizza-Huts and Subways for starters), and equipment with smaller logistics foot-prints.

Armor may help protect troops from weapons like IEDs, but it is useless if it makes them more likely to be attacked by those weapons in the first place.

(1) “More Attacks, Mounting Casualties“, The Washington Post. September 30, 2007.

(2) “The Truck the Pentagon Wants and the Firm that Makes it“, Peter Eisler.  USA Today. October 2, 2007.

(3)  Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org).

(4)  “Tanks Take a Beating in Iraq“,  Steven Komarow.  USA Today. March 29, 2005.

(5)  “Iraq Facilities“, GlobalSecurity.org. This provides a very interesting overview of the massive logistics effort put into Iraq during the early phases of the war.

Podcast: Download

By James Lochbaum
Article ID: 1342

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is a Naval base established at the end of the Spanish-American War. It has since become a sort of frontier outpost in a country that, while not openly hostile, is certainly not friendly.  Bagram Air Base is a lifeline between the United States and its far-flung troops in the third world country of Afghanistan.  Beyond their “wild west” frontier status, these two bastions of American power abroad have something else in common.  They each incarcerate numerous so-called “suspected terrorists” away from the prying eyes of American citizens and, to some extent, the world community.

The controversy over such detention facilities has been nearly constant and comes from all corners.  Human rights groups rail against the lack of due process of law, living conditions, and prisoner abuse.  Recently, with the Obama administration’s proposal to close these facilities, new concerns have been raised.  One of the biggest is being what to do with over 200 detainees that still remain in Guantanamo Bay.  While reviews of evidence by the Justice Department has led to the release of a small number of detainees (1), it’s still realistic to assume that there will be many prisoners convicted and sentenced.  There is also the issue of securely detaining the inmates until such a time as trials can be arranged.  Therefore, these detainees must be transferred to secure facilities.

The U.S. has made significant progress regarding the representation and application of due process of law in places such as Bagram.  But the focus is mainly on military law (2).  While this is appropriate for those suspects who are captured as enemy combatants, there are a large number of prisoners who are captured outside of combat.  These prisoners should be tried in a civil criminal court.  Why?  To answer that question, let’s first take a look at the perspective of a “terrorist.”

Terrorism is the systematic use of violent or destructive acts, used to cause terror as a means of coercion (3).  This being an incredibly broad definition, it includes many groups.  The key word is “systematic.”  There are many legal and illegal organizations that could be labelled as “systematic”.  But terrorists are organized and structured around social, religious, and economic goals (to name a few), and these goals are achieved through a planned and calculated use of violent or destructive acts.  Almost every act of terrorism requires breaking the law.  This would lead many people to conclude that civil criminal courts should be able to handle terrorism cases.  But, this reason alone is not sufficient.

The opposition would say, just because terrorists commit crimes, doesn’t mean they should be tried in civil criminal courts.  Terrorists are uniquely dangerous because of their organization and commitment to political goals.  Therefore, they should be given special attention.  This has led many nations, not just the U.S., to effectively declare “war on terrorism” (4).   It is this notion that leads to dangerous conclusions – the notion that terrorism can only be dealt with through war.  This implies that the military should be given jurisdiction. After all, it is a “war”, right?  This leads to infringements of civilian government. The Guantanamo and Bagram prisons are but symptoms.

Such special treatment of terrorists is dangerous.  First, it institutes political change.  When a terrorist group is seen as an enemy that has declared war on a country or region, it has effectively been elevated to the status of a political power.  This is a prime goal of many terrorist organizations.  Second, it provides these organizations with a ready recruiting tool.  When Al-Jazeera reports that, for instance, a “US court rejects Uighur Freedom” (5),  it plays directly into the hands of radicals who use the press to fan the flames of radicalism and recruit others to their cause.  Last, these measures often weaken domestic support and cause divisions within a country’s citizenry.  The ACLU is presently involved in numerous cases against the government in regards to US detention facilities abroad. The publicity from these kinds of cases made for major talking points during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.

To treat a terrorist as a criminal and try them in a civil criminal court alleviates a number of these problems and has its own advantages, particularly for the United States.  When a government tries a terrorist as a criminal, they strip away the political identity that such groups try to create for themselves.  When a government refuses to use such pejoratives as “terrorists”, or “terror suspects”, and instead labels them as “criminals”, this unifies and calms their citizens.  Most people would agree that criminals who commit violent and destructive acts should be brought to justice. When this is done within the nation’s established legal framework, it instills confidence and nullifies enemy propaganda efforts.

This approach has received some attention in Britain.  Sir Ken Macdonald summed up this strategy in a public address:

“We need to be very clear about this. On the streets of London, there is no such thing as a war on terror. The fight against terrorism on the streets of Britain is not a war. It is the prevention of crime, the enforcement of our laws and the winning of justice for those damaged by their infringement.” (6)

There is also the matter of cost.  The United States currently houses 1,525,924 inmates within its borders (7), the highest incarceration rate of any developed country (8).  With overcrowding a major problem in US prisons, the country can ill-afford to build and maintain special detention centers outside of the country.

One of the strongest reasons that American citizens are reluctant to bring detainees from facilities like Guantanamo and Bagram is more emotional than rational.  It is the attitude of “not in my backyard”, the idea that all detainees in these facilities are dangerous and that bringing them into the U.S. makes us more vulnerable.  This seems like a logical response, but is actually flawed in several ways.

In order to function, terrorist groups require people with a wide variety of skills.  They need accountants, doctors, drivers, planners, and all manner of people whose jobs do not entail committing violent acts.  Obviously, aiding such criminal groups is illegal, and those who do should be held responsible.  These supporters, when captured, are relatively low risk inmates. These supporters make up the majority of most terrorist cells.

Some are concerned about these detainees escaping inside the United States. Admittedly, there is no way to guarantee that one-hundred percent of all detainees can’t escape.  However, consider how much more difficult it is to catch an escapee in an unfriendly country, like Cuba or Afghanistan. Terrorists who escape from detention facilities abroad would be more likely to avoid apprehension, and more likely to reestablish contact with their groups.  In the U.S., apprehension would be much easier, since the manhunt would consist of local, state, and federal resources.  An escapee in the United States also faces an environment that is much less conducive to his operations and goals.

There is no denying that there are extremely violent terrorists who must be incarcerated with the utmost concern for security.  Sending these individuals to the United States is almost a separate concern compared to their less violent counterparts.  But if there is any nation that is equipped to handle these types, it is the United States.  With dedicated professionals that specialize in prisoner transfer (such as units the U.S. Marshals Service) and a robust Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Justice Department can, and does, handle the transfer and incarceration of 650,400 violent criminals every year (9).

While there is no “perfect answer” to the problem of detaining suspected terrorists, it is clear we need a better solution. Placing terror suspects in the civil criminal justice system deprives them of their valued political status.  It keeps American citizens safer as terrorist networks are deprived of recruiting tools. It allows for maximum transparency in the legal process.  This all proves the old adage is not out of date: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

References

1)  “6 Detainees Are Freed as Questions Linger“, William Glaberson.  New York Times.  June 11, 2009.

2)  “US To Expand Detainee Review in Afghan Prison“; Schmitt, Eric.  New York Times.  September 12, 2009.

(3)  It is interesting that there is no internationally agreed-upon definition of terrorism.  However, I use the  Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition.

(4)  The phrase “war on terror” was used historically in the 1880′s by European governments attempting to stem the threat of anarchists.  It was later used by the British as a moniker for the British Zionist groups in the British Mandate of Palestine.

“The Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11″; Rapoport, David C.  Anthropoetics vol. 8, no. 1(Spring/Summer 2002).

(5)  “US Court Rejects Uighur Freedom“; Al-Jazeera English.  February 19, 2009.

(6)  “There is No War on Terror in the UK, Says DPP“; Bannerman, Lucy.  The Times.  January 24, 2007.

(7)  Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck, Ph.D. (November 2006). “Prisoners in 2005″ (PDF). U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. pp. 1.

(8) Ibid pp. 1

(9) Ibid pp. 9

Podcast: Download

by Jeff Kilroy
Article ID: 1341

I attempt to have rational arguments with theists about their beliefs. I really do. Unfortunately, it seems that every time I present an argument that almost makes me shout “Checkmate!”, I get the dismissive reply of “You just need faith,” or “This is just MY faith”. In most religions and even some pseudo-scientific circles, faith is touted as a necessity or virtue. But is faith really a good thing to possess? Better yet, do we really know what faith is?

One of the more commonly used definitions comes from Merriam-Webster: faith is a “Firm belief in something for which there is no proof“.

That doesn’t sound so great to me.

I decided to post on a few religious forums and see what faith was all about.  My question to the readers was pretty simple. I wanted to know how they would define faith as well as why they felt that it was good to have.

Unfortunately, the responses were not as captivating as I hoped they would be. I received generic responses that really were non-answers more than anything else. Some explained their relationship with God, which really had nothing to do with my question. The primary stance was that faith is simply one’s trust in something. We need it because we don’t always have proof.

The problem is that whatever is taken on faith must have some faint evidence or reason to begin with. This often comes from your surroundings (including parents, culture and friends), otherwise the person with faith in Jesus Christ should also have faith in Muhammad, Zeus, and unicorns.  There has to be a reason why one obtains a particular faith in the first place. That faith is not a belief in something without evidence, but rather belief in something with some bit of evidence. And even with “evidence”, it’s still not enough to convince another, otherwise the believer wouldn’t need to mention faith in the first place.

The amount of evidence required in order to believe a claim should depend on the initial believability of the claim. For example, I walk into a grocery store and notice the man behind the counter has a nametag on his shirt reading, “Hello, my name is Bill”. I would not need any more evidence to be convinced his name is Bill. This would be perfectly fine to assume since the evidence is sufficient in comparison to the claim. Since I may never see Bill again, I am not terribly worried about getting his name wrong.

Next, I lean over and say, “Hi, Bill!” as he rings up my items. What if he corrects me? What if he explains that he had accidentally switched nametags with another employee, and then rushes over to the “real” Bill to get the correct nametag? Would I reject his claim of not being named Bill? Of course not. While the excuse is a bit odd, I have witnessed enough evidence to change my previous assertion. This is where faith is different from the normal way we reason.

When someone has faith in something, they have an unjustified alliance with an idea.  While it could be said that we all have this to a degree, that we will continually qualify something as true until we receive a specific amount of evidence to oppose that assumption, the main distinction is with the amount of evidence required by a belief. If you have strong faith in an idea, you’re saying, “It will be very hard or impossible for me to change my mind.” This is a problem. When a person is closed to critical analysis of their own ideas, it’s tough to trust the other choices they’ve made in their life.

I feel everyone has the right to believe whatever that want, no matter how crazy I think they are. I would never want to take that freedom away from someone. I would, however, encourage those with supposed “strong faith” to evaluate their stance from an unbiased perspective. Get some opposing ideas and truly consider them. We must all realize how our own beliefs affect our everyday choices – large and small. The more we can be rational with our ideas and justify our beliefs, the more our society will be a more sensible - and enjoyable – place to live.