Middle East Musings

The stifled, suppressed people of the Arab and Muslim worlds are looking at Tunisia with envy and daring to dream of freedom. Of course, what they get even if they escape their current unenviable lives may not improve their situation much. I don't pretend any regional, cultural, or Islamist religious expertise but it seems to me they are trapped by regional, cultural, and Islamist religious traditions that may lead them to simply exchange one master for another. I would not be surprised to see them boot out their strong men dictators and replace them with a theocracy that may be equally brutal and repressive. The Shah of Iran was replaced with the fanatical, black-turbanned ayatollahs and religious police enforcing morality with whips and prisons and stonings. The warring warlords of Afghanistan were replaced by the Taliban and religious police enforcing morality with lashings and death. So many of these areas have Islamists, themselves brutally supressed by thuggish dictators who fear the potential revolution should the Islamists gain enough power. And if they gain that power, no one should doubt they will remove the dictator's foot from the collective neck of the people and swiftly replace it with their own.

I have wondered on occasion why so many in that region of the world live under a dictatorship or a theocracy and suffer lives of such misery. Do they have some deep cultural belief in a strong but benevolent father figure to rule over and take care of them that sets them up for the dictators? Is it their immersion in the deeply paternalistic Abrahamic religion of Islam that makes both the dictator and the theocracy so appealing?

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter seem to be playing big roles in the unrest in Muslim lands. Maybe the forces unleashed by the internet and the connected age will have a democratizing effect and smooth out the differences that divide us. Gains and losses are both likely. Here's hoping seomething resembling wisdom prevails.

  

Wild Geese Wonder

Driving to work during the early morning hours has some rewards. Passing through the areas around Sedgewick and Bono in the fall, winter, and spring months I'm often treated to the wonderful sight of wild geese doing whatever they're doing in the large fields or flying overhead in their distinctive more-or-less V-shaped patterns. Sometime it's 5 or 10 birds. Often the flocks stretch from horizon to horizon in awe-inspiring displays against a dawning sky that just fill me with delight! I wonder, do they have that effect on others? Surely it must be so. Who could see such wonder and not be moved? If I happen to be walking outside and hear the honking overhead I have to stop and find them - sometimes not an easy task - especially in the fall when they are heading south in their annual migration and flying at high altitudes against a bright sunny day. Some years ago when I was in a fanatical fishing phase I remember a couple of times on the Current or Black rivers when huge flocks were passing overhead for an hour or more. At those times I just put down my fishing pole, leaned back in the boat and enjoyed that awesome spectacle. May they fly forever!

Strange Universe(s?)

Just listened to an audio of an interview with Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University. He is also a best selling author of The Elegant Universe and other books. I don't remember who coined the widely quoted phrase, "the universe is not only stranger that we suppose, it's stranger than we can suppose", but it's spot on. I read this stuff when I run across it so it's not new to me but it still blows my mind.

The deeply weird and counter-intuitive quantum physics, seething and chaotic, with virtual particles flickering in and out of existence and underpinning the larger reality we live in and doing ridiculously impossible things like allowing those particles to be in more than one place at the same time. Good thing, too, since apparently our computers, cell phones, and other devices wouldn't work without doing those ridiculously impossible things.

So much we don't know...  Are there really 10 ^500 universes? Perhaps with different laws of physics in each one? What's it like to have the grasp of mathematics and theoretical physics that allows one to see these wonders.What is the dark energy that has that weird antigravity effect pushing the galaxies apart at ever-increasing speeds? Could this universe really be infinite, with infinite variations of me asking an infinite number of questions for infinity? (Does that thought send a little chill down your spine?) Will the Large Hadron Collider finally allow some of these far-out speculations to be tested? I want answers!

Gender Wars

Tonight online I saw an article about what guy's bad habits say about them. The picture showed a toilet seat up and my mind went back in time...

Many moons ago when I was an impressionable young lad of 21 or so I had a girlfriend who remarked one day with some vehemence how she HATED it when guys left the toilet seat up. I'm sure I was somewhere between often and always guilty of the same offense at the time. On reflection it seemed a reasonable complaint and I was duly ashamed of my entire gender for causing distress to such gentle, fair-minded creatures. I was so ashamed I resolved to never do that again and it became such a habit that I got a little peeved at guys who did that in a communal bathroom (obviously not applicable to guys only bathrooms).

Then, gradually, over the years I began to ponder the odds that nearly all the virtues possessed by humanity happened to reside in one half of humanity. I wondered why, if men needed the seat up and women needed it down, the obvious conclusion was that men who didn't put the seat down were sadly lacking in character and consideration. Apparently women won that argument. Not surprising. After all, men are outmatched in verbal exchanges with women. We wander away, vaguely confused, thinking we've been had but unable to figure out how it happened and convinced we must have done something wrong.

What have I learned? That we both are what we are, unthinking slaves in many ways to the hormones and socialization that rule us and set us up for conflict at times but often capable of bridging the gap with a little effort. I still put the seat down. Mainly out of long habit (I think), but also out of consideration. After all, how much effort does it take?

Teach The Controversy?

A few years ago the Dover, PA school board ordered teachers to read a statement to high school biology students suggesting there was a reasonable alternative to evolutionary theory called intelligent design. Intelligent Design is actually the same old creationism (in disguise) that had failed many times to get itself inserted into science curricula but keeps on trying. Then President George W. Bush weighed in stating we should "teach the controversy". In reality, of course, there is no controversy and it's unfortunate that anyone who didn't know that could be elected president. If biologists were asked to line up on one side or another I'm pretty sure you would see many thousands on the evolution side for every 1 or 2 fringe opponents on the other side. But when the public is asked creationism wins by a huge majority. Evolution is as much a fact as any other rigorously tested field of science. Lawrence Krauss, theoretical physicist and author, said that every year the National Science Foundation asks the public a question, true or false: the earth goes around the sun and takes a year to do it? Apparently, only about 50% get it right. He puts the evolution/creationism debate into perspective by saying (facetiously, of course) that perhaps we should teach the controversy about whether the earth goes around the sun or vice versa.

Gloom and pessimism, perilously close to despair, settles over me at times when I hear from the front lines of these battles that pop up with some regularity over issues like evolution versus creationism. Or healthcare. Or gun control. It's difficult to have productive conversations when emotion and beliefs seek equal status with reason. And it's difficult to understand how lay people with no expertise in a particular field of study can disagree with near unanimous conclusions from experts in that particular field. Most distressing is the way people seem to think that belief trumps reason.

I recently listened to a conversational forum with Lawrence Krauss gently taking Richard Dawkins to task for being too in-your-face in rejecting religious belief which he argued alienated people he was trying to persuade. Although he is an atheist, Krauss argued that believing in evolution didn't require being an atheist and quoted another physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg, "science doesn't make it impossible to believe in God, it just makes it possible to not believe in God". (Weinberg is widely quoted. Another one I've heard: with or without religion, good people will do good things and evil people will do evil things; but for good people to do evil things - that takes religion.)  Krauss can point to scientists such as Ken Miller, Christian and biologist who argued for evolution in the Dover case, and Francis Collins, Christian and author of The Language Of God , and Director of the National Institute of Health.

Personally, I think Miller and Collins simply showcase the ability of people - properly motivated - to hold two opposing ideas in their mind at the same time. They have intimate knowledge on a molecular level of biological processes and obviously came to the inescapable conclusion that evolution powered by natural selection explained those processes. There is no natural process one could examine with the scientific method to lead to an equally inescapable conclusion that supernatural events are responsible for all of existence. It seems equally obvious that Miller and Collins took a leap of faith and are able to believe in magic. I see no way to get there without that leap of faith and and that leaves me out.

Assault On Abortion Rights

A recent NYT article says midterm election gains have conservatives in several states daring to dream of overturning the hated Roe V. Wade decision. We seem to be in one of those periodic and inexplicable (to me) global swings to conservative tendencies.

I strongly lean toward an attitude I heard Dennis Miller express long ago that everyone ought to tend their own garden on the abortion issue. Another good point was made by Bill Clinton when he said abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

I don't think much of the arguments of the religious right, either. They are self serving and hypocritical. I'm a little disgusted every time I hear someone describe themselves as "pro-life". They tend to REALLY like the death penalty. They just have the arrogance and self-righteousness to think they should be able to judge who should live or die. The proper term for them would be anti-abortion. That is exactly their goals and ideology. But "anti" has such a negative ring to it. Pro-life just sounds all warm and fuzzy. They get it wrong again when they call the pro-choice position "pro-abortion". That is rhetoric designed deliberately to demonize. No one is pro-abortion. Actually, that's probably not quite accurate. In a situation with a fetus having little or no chance of quality of life it's probably reasonable to advocate abortion.

It truly is an unsettling issue with few easy answers, especially as the fetus gets closer to term. But I have to come down on the side of it being a woman's decision to exercise control over her own bodily processes. Ultimately, there is always some risk to a woman's life or health during pregnancy. I don't think anyone has the right to criminalize her choice to not accept that risk.

Tunisian Revolution - Who's Next?

An uprising in the North African country of Tunisia has toppled the autocratic government and no doubt has other Arab strongmen very nervous. The suicide that apparently sparked the revolution has inspired imitators in other Muslim countries with large populations of young people, high unemployment, and harsh repression of freedoms and civil rights. These places are no doubt powder kegs awaiting a spark. How could it be otherwise? Take a population generally skewed to under age 30 demographics with limited job opportunities, limited hope, limited freedoms. Now add in brutal repression and deep resentment that must be ever present as they compare their lives with more fortunate citizens of other countries as seen through various media such as internet, movies, and television. Then watch the brutal strongmen and their corrupt regimes cynically manipulate or violently supress the forces of radical Islamic fundamentalism as another tool to maintain their precarious grip on power. Now comes some seemingly random event to fan the simmering rage into the fires of revolution.

At first glance it might seem a good thing when a brutal regime is swept from power. But sometimes they are replaced by something as bad or worse. Without some internal rudder steering a course toward a benevolent democratic government there is the danger that one master will simply be replaced by another. Consider Iran in the 70s when the Shah was forced to flee the country as revolutionary forces with students full of Islamic fervor took over. Now those idealistic young students who drove a tyrant from power are middle aged theocrats with their collective foot firmly on the necks of the current generation of young people yearning to be free. Consider Iraq after America invaded and deposed the thuggish Saddam Hussein. Iraq had been a check on the regional ambitions of Iran and had fought a horrific 8 year war with them during the 80s that killed some 500,000 on both sides. With Saddam gone the majority Iraqi Shiites may grow much closer to the majority Shiites of Iran. That might be good for the Shiites of both countries but perhaps critically destabilizing for the region and quite damaging to American interests.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have funded or supported the forces of radical Islamic fundamentalism with both immediate and potential future consequences for world peace. Saudi Arabian support for the fundamentalist Wahhabism led to Saudi fanatics flying planes into the Twin Towers. Pakistani support for the Taliban led to their ascension to power in Afghanistan where they provided sanctuary for Al Qaeda to plan attacks and provide support for the fanatics. All religious fundamentalism is dangerous and detrimental but none so much as Islamic fundamentalism. Samuel P. Huntington was an American political scientist who wrote an influential article titled Clash of Civilizations that has been quoted as essentially noting that Islam has bloody borders from perpetual conflict. They do not play well with others. Perhaps there is a cultural derangement from deep immersion in religious fundamentalism. Perhaps their lives are so bad they want to speed the transition to the next life. Whatever the rationale, the well being of millions depends on reason winning the day against the forces of fundamentalism.

Judge The Quran?

The tiresome Reverend Terry Jones of "International Burn The Quran Day" notoriety that he failed to carry out is apparently not content with his original 15 minutes of fame and is announcing an "International Judge The Quran Day". Yes, he is putting the Quran on trial. He is "accusing the Quran of murder, rape, deception, and being responsible for terrorist activities all over the world". He must not be familiar with the people-living-in-glass-houses-should-be-careful-with-stones concept. I have read the Bible and know it sanctions wholesale slaughter as well as murder, rape, deception, and slavery in various scriptures. I have not read the Quran but since it is another book originating from the same general region in the Middle Eastern desert and also claiming to be written or dictated by the creator of the universe one would expect the similarities to be greater than the differences. So I would expect the Quran to be well stocked with barbarisms and customs common to that era in the same manner as the Bible.

If religion did not enjoy such immunity from objective examination and was required to match extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence the Rev. Jones wouldn't get 15 seconds, much less 15 minutes. Like John Lennon, I hope someday to live in a rational world where no one wants to kill or die over what they believe. I have no problem with people believing whatever they want to believe providing they do not inflict those beliefs on others. However, most of us would find it hard not to attempt to convince others to share our beliefs. Given the twin facts that beliefs can have profound consequences and religious beliefs have a special exemption from the necessity to provide evidence for beliefs, people have been happily killing each other over those beliefs for thousands of years. Observational evidence seems to indicate that the more religious a culture or region is the more dysfunctional it is. Consider the blood-soaked region where the Abrahamic religions were born. Consider the American south where the murder, crime, teen pregnancy, heart disease and stroke rates and many other markers of societal ills rise in tandem with religious piety. It would be interesting to see comparison studies done but the aforementioned taboo on objective analysis of religious beliefs makes it a near certainity those studies won't take place anytime soon. So the good Reverend Jones can continue to add his poison to the toxic mix. And on we will go, despising those others, those enemies of the True God, believers in the false god, doomed to spend an eternity in torment for picking the wrong god to believe in out of the thousands that humankind has invented. Heaven help us all!

Politics As Usual

I'm guessing nothing much will change in the aftermath of the tragic, mindless shooting spree that took the life of several people and critically injured a young Arizona congresswoman. Allegedly shot through the brain by an apparently mentally disturbed young man who had no trouble acquiring a Glock 9-mm semi-automatic with 30-round clips. Calls will continue for taking the heated political rhetoric with its martial metaphors and crosshairs imagery down a notch or two. Efforts to assign blame will be swiftly rejected. Some arguments on both sides will have merit and some won't. There will be sound and fury that will diminsh quickly as the short attention span of the public focuses elsewhere.

This incident is collateral damage that is the inevitable result of a society with a history of violence and a gun loving culture. Technological advances coupled with a powerful gun lobby keeps ever more lethal weapons available to the general public and that means high body counts if the shooter so desires.

It would be useful and instructive if we could have honest discussions about ways and means to diminish the frequency and lethality of these sorts of events.

Tidbits

A cartoon in the most recent Newsweek shows Uncle Sam, looking anxious, striped tophat in hand, sitting across from the gypsy fortune teller as she gazes into the glow of her crystal ball. Uncle Sam asks, "Can you tell me about my future"? She replies, "Hmmm... I would, but I can't read Chinese!" Well done! And perhaps too likely for comfort.

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I read that the black-clad, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has returned from "self-imposed exile in Iran". It seems he is the spiritual leader of the majority Shiites and is adored by untold thousands (millions?). Of course, the minority Sunnis that the U.S. invasion toppled from power are not among his devotees. His Mahdi militia killed many Sunnis in the chaotic sectarian bloodbath that convulsed the country in the aftermath of the invasion. Newsweek featured him on the cover during that time both because he was a major player in events shaping Iraq and he seemed to dislike Americans as much as Sunnis. He was a menacing figure, striding forward with black robes swirling, head angled downward, scowling into the camera through bushy black brows. In a way I was reminded of the infamous Ayatollah Khomeini. Although Sadr seems dangerous in a thuggish way and Khomeini had the air of the true fanatic, pitiless and merciless. I fail to see how people are drawn to and worship such men. Perhaps attempts to understand would lead to despair.

It was reported that Sadr was occupied with religious studies during his years in Iran and intends to continue with those studies in Iraq. Cynical me, I was wondering if those studies included new and even more diabolical ways to manipulate the credulous, illiterate minds of his subjects and gain even greater power.

Death In Pakistan

Salmaan Taseer, governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, was recently assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, one of the latest victims of the forces of religious fundamentalism and intolerance. His killer was angered by the governor's opposition to Pakistan's notorious blasphemy laws, which orders life imprisonment for defiling the Quran and death for defaming or insulting their prophet. The blasphemy laws are criticized for being used to settle scores and persecute minorities. The governor had spoken out in support of a pardon for a Christian woman in prison and under a death sentence for supposedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

A recent news headline said, "Muslim scholars praise killer of Pakistan governor". The article said that as the killer was lead into court a rowdy crowd at the scene patted his back and kissed his cheek as lawyers showered him with rose petals. He reportedly proclaimed himself a proud slave of the Prophet and testified many times that "God is great!". Regarding a Jared Diamond observation that sub-Saharan Africa never produced an advanced civilization because, "you can’t saddle a rhinoceros and ride it into battle", Sam Harris said, "Religion is like a rhinoceros. It doesn’t do much useful work for you but up close it makes some rather spectacular claims upon your attention".

I would venture to say that two of the greatest threats to human survival are the forces of nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Both are inherently divisive in ideology and dangerous in passions aroused. Nationalism is tribal thinking in a world increasingly globalized. The certainity religious fundamentalists have about their imagined after life does not allow for tolerance in this one. We should strive to fully comprehend the forces that channel and focus the beliefs that threaten our survival so we can formulate strategies to dismantle and defeat them.

Entry in my journal a couple of years ago:
                                            
December 2, 2008
Just read in the news that a bipartisan study panel is warning that a nuclear or (most likely) biological attack on America is likely by 2013. That’s not far away. It got me to thinking about the nature and origins of the threats to our future. I’m quite comfortable with the fact that my interests and concerns are largely selfish. Humanity, collectively and individually, seems, at times, to excel at being its own worst enemy. On a personal level, I want to be around to enjoy the heights we can reach through science and learning if we ever grow a collective brain and put aside our dangerous toys, our dangerous nationalism, our dangerous tolerance for religious fundamentalism. The world has gotten much too small, crowded and well-armed to indulge those who hate and fear and obsess about other people’s morals.

Some people have always been willing to kill or die for what they believe. And strong beliefs, especially those infused with moral claims, are often granted a certain nobility of purpose. We might be better served if more of those who wear their beliefs and convictions like a suit of armor would spend a bit more time reflecting on the long history of humankind believing things without evidence that turned out to be wrong. A little more humility and a little less certainity could go a long way.

The End Is Near! (Again)

The end of the world begins on May 21, 2011. This from a recent news article on msnbc.com.  According to Harold Camping, an 89 year-old retired civil engineer who based his prediction on careful reading of the Bible, "Beyond a shadow of a doubt, May 21 will be the date of the Rapture and the day of judgement". The actual end of the world is to follow on October 21, 2011. He previously predicted a very high likelihood the world would end September 1994. Despite being disappointed that time he is completely confident this time. His followers seem to be spreading the warning with equal confidence.

These sorts of predictions have been made many times before. Presumably most people have heard at least some of these at some point. You would think that the first thing that would come to mind would be that the prediction success rate for the end of the world is precisely zero. You might then expect considerable reluctance to keep predicting an event that kept not happening. Doesn't seem to work that way. They drink the kool-aid and boldly go there yet again.

Why Science Matters

I read an article from  scimag.org about how the public in general seems to feel about science. Here's an excerpt :

It's not just about evolution anymore. Growing anti-science sentiment in the United States now infuses public discourse on conservation, vaccination, distribution of research funds, and climate change . Low rates of scientific literacy exacerbate the problem. Although the public recognizes its indebtedness to the products of scientific knowledge, few understand much about the nature of that knowledge or the processes that generated it. Without a basic understanding of how science works, the public is vulnerable to antiscience propaganda, which engenders distrust of science when it comes to social issues, consumer choices, and policy decisions.

This has huge consequences for America. Why? Because without public support of science and technology the necessary research will not be funded and we will not be able to maintain our dominant role in the world. I believe I read recently that world leadership requires at least two things: a strong economy and sufficient support for scientific research. And those two things are completely interdependent. Obviously it takes a strong economy to fund the scientific research to maintain that leadership role. And science and technology powers much of economic growth. How different will the world be when China dominates the science and technology fields? Notice I said "when", not "if". China will pour the money into scientific research. One of the things provoking some anxiety in the Pentagon is China's research into anti-aircraft carrier missile technology. Those aircraft carriers are one of the primary ways we are able to project power around the world. We have one now prowling around the Korean peninsula to make North Korea think twice before getting even crazier. And China definitely does not like us having an aircraft carrier that close to their neighborhood.

China has a booming economy and has shed a lot of the rigid Communist economic ideology and policies that caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. She has implemented free market reforms that have transformed her in a couple of decades from a poverty stricken Third World country to the second largest economy in the world. And likely soon to be the largest. One difference will be funding for science. And the fact that their leaders don't have to answer to a scientifically illiterate public too oblivious to how that funding benefits them.

Science sustains our lives to a degree that most people, lacking any interest in science, seldom, if ever, consider. Take away those benefits and most of the world's population would probably be dead in a week or two. It's astounding that a field of study that has bestowed such bounty on humankind and makes modern life possible gets so little support. If that doesn't change we may have to get used to China calling the shots.