Are We Approaching The "End Of Physics"? Not Even Close

"The end of physics" has been a theme that's been circulating in the parochial memosphere at odd times since the late 19th century.   And not too long after each invocation (e.g. before the dawn of quantum theory and Planck's contributions) it was found wanting and skewered. In no uncertain terms.  Somewhat like Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History" the meme almost always has embodied a typically human arrogance that we've now come to know everything we need to, or that the truly rich and varied events (or findings) have by now been exhausted.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the more recent incarnations of the theme emerged recently in a WSJ Review piece by Frank Wilczek ('Have We Come To The End Of Physics',  July 6-7, p. C2)   He basically summarizes the relevant memes as follows:

"Physicists, bewitched by mathematical beauty, are failing to solve new problems"......"High class physicists no longer care about physical reality - nor should they"...."Science is over."

The last is especially idiotic given there are hundreds of fronts on which science now advances and for which more research is needed, from CRISPR -CAS9 gene splicing, to the genetic basis for cancers and appropriate therapies, to nuclear fusion, to halting viral outbreaks, from Ebola to the next flu pandemic.  Then there is perhaps the most significant relevant physics at this time, that of atmospheric physics as it relates to climate change and greenhouse  gas warming.

But Wilczek ties the latest memes to three recent books:  'Lost in Math' by Sabine Hoseenfelder, 'String Theory and the Scientific Method', by Richard Dawid,  and 'The End of Science' by John Horgan.  As Wilczek correctly notes:

"For theoretical physicists they are kind of a reproach, since they argue that today's physics has gotten itself into a dead end."

But as usual the fallacy of composition is rife, in the cited authors conflating all of physics to what is actually practiced by perhaps 1 percent, if that.   Hence, it makes no sense to judge the research of the 99 percent from the 1 percent, say doing string theory,  multiverse conjectures or quintessence in conjunction with dark energy.  Any perusal of  Physics Today  archives over the past year would  quickly kibosh the notion that "physics is at an end". These include a host of empirically validated discoveries, which seldom make the news like string theory or multiverse speculations.  These have included:

'Dark Matter Detector Observes Rare Nuclear Decay' (July, 2019, p. 14)

Role of piezoelectric crystals for long range transmission of EM waves'.(Op. cit, p. 19)

'Heterogeneous Catalysis', Op. cit. p. 38)

'Isotope Measurements Help Pin Down The Ancient Rise Of Oxygen' (June, 2018, p. 16)

'First direct views of attosecond electron-nuclear coupling' (Op. cit., p. 17)

'QED experiment detects two distinct photons simultaneously resonant with an optical cavity'  (and with one of two electronic transitions of the same atom)  (August, 2018, p. 14)

'Use of Xenon isotopes to track volatile recycling in Earth's mantle' (October, 2018 p. 14)

'Acoustic metasurface creates quiet locations in a room' (August, 2018 p. 18)

Granted, none of these are especially 'sexy'  or exotic but all give the lie to Horgan's claim that physics has somehow become "unmoored"   from empirical evidence.

Indeed, as Wilczek pointedly observes:

"Opinions may differ on the current health of physics, but no reasonable person can dispute that it has been a hugely successful enterprise"

Correctly noting that without the revolutionary  breakthroughs in 20th century physics - namely quantum theory and relativity - we'd never have seen or used nuclear power, lasers, rockets (such as the Saturn V moon rocket), GPS technology, cell phones or the quantum computers now coming onto the scene.  In other words, without physics our civilization would still be at the level of the Victorian horse and buggy phase.  

Seeing the vast spectrum of current physics research in the PT issues cited above, one quickly comes to the conclusion that Horgan's contention that "physicists' time is past" and "they should do something else instead" (ibid.) borders on the imbecilic. And if physicists acceded to Horgan's wishes who would expand our current frontiers say of climate research, or the prediction of  the next asteroid strike or coronal mass ejections - with the potential to reduce our civilization to Dark ages' life quality?  I mean, seriously? 

I suspect much of the problem - such as for Mr. Horgan (and I believe much of the general public) - is that physics' "fancy" mathematics irritates them, galls them - because well, they can't do it!  Most of the public - even those who read Scientific American- probably halted their math courses at Calculus, if they even took that.  And from what I've read in a few education journals, barely 1 in 1000 Americans ever see the inside of a physics lab in connection with a college level General Physics course.   So it is little wonder there is an existing impatience with theoretical physics and its "gibberish" equations and material.   No one - least of all any upstanding American (with an opinion on everything else)  - wishes to be made to feel like a  dummy when confronted perhaps by a tensor equation, e.g

ds²   =  g _mn dx ^m dx ⁿ

   = g ₁₁ dx₁²    + g ₂₂ dx₂²    + g ₃₃ dx₃²    + g ₄₄ dx₄²                           

+   2 g ₁₂ dx₁ dx₂  +   2 g ₁₃ dx₁ dx₃ +   2 g ₁₄ dx₁ dx₄

+   2 g ₂₄ dx₂ dx₄  +   2 g ₃₄ dx₃ dx₄ +   2 g ₄₁ dx₄ dx₁

+   2 g ₄₂ dx₄ dx₂ +   2 g ₄₃ dx₄ dx₃

Hence, Wilczek's reference to the late 20th century's  articulation of the so-called 'Standard Model' is germane.  As he notes it "reached a very high plateau"  and also offered "well tested equations for the behavior of ordinary matter under ordinary conditions "    Also, acknowledging that "the theoretical framework of the Standard model was in place by the 1970s."  It also "predicted and enabled spectacular discoveries such as the Higgs boson".

As for Horgan and his contentions, I had dealt with them before, pertaining to an article appearing  last year under the banner 'Serious Doubt On Serious Earth' in the WSJ Review section (p. C12, Oct. 20-21).   It dealt with two books, one by the late Stephen Hawking ('Brief Answers to the Big Questions') and by Martin Rees ('On the Future').   What I showed in an October, 2018 post is that Horgan basically didn't know what he was writing about. 

Frank Wilczek, by contrast, mostly does know what he's writing about  Especially in ending:

"The plateau we've reached is a good place to be. In fact, physics is especially exciting these days, because we're learning how to use our understanding of 'ordinary matter' to make machine assistants...that will amplify our thoughts, do useful things."

Well said, but let's also bear in mind there will always be a major role in physics for theoretical research which may not deliver anything with "nuts and bolts"  - or  sensors- say to make lives more comfortable and convenient.   

To get an idea of the sheer expanse of pure research merely  in astrophysics, check out the papers in the link to  this Astrophysical Journal issue below:

• Number 2, 2018 February 1

Even if you are unable to grasp the content in the specific papers, it is instructive to peruse the span of topics just from this single issue .

Yes, Peer Review CAN Be Improved - Even For Climate Science Journals

The persistent complaint of the mainstream scientific community about climate deniers is the latter seek to tar the entire journal referee process. This is primarily done by way of suggesting (or asserting) that the peer review process is itself "biased" in the sense of giving preference to authors, papers backing up the reality of global warming.  As I've shown in previous posts this is total nonsense.

First, climate change denier papers are generally dismissed precisely because they lack the basics of scientific authority - including: proper data selection, bias-free  analysis, consistent interpretation of data, and appropriate mathematical techniques. Hence, their papers are tagged as the opposite of  authoritative science.

Second, given all climate scientists must compete for scarce funding resources, they are not about to help a competitor - say set to publish a competing model or theory - merely because their research is in line with global warming /climate change..  Thus, if anything,  peer review is likely to be even more rigorous than for deniers.

Having said that there are areas where the peer review process can definitely  be improved, and not just in climate science but across the scientific publication spectrum.. One way would be in the removal of gender bias for selection of peer reviewers, which is now weighted heavily toward males.  At the forefront is a recent study in Nature, showing that women were being used less as reviewers in nearly all age groups compared to expectations based on their higher success rates as authors and their distribution with age in the AGU membership.  The AGU is the American Geophysical Union and comprises the largest professional organization of both climate scientists and space physics researchers.

Along with those findings of gender bias in peer review, overall data clearly show that AGU needs to engage more younger scientists and also more scientists from outside the "First World"..  Thus, the  peer review process is adversely affected in terms of an age bias (favoring older researchers) and also favoritism toward reviewers in more developed nations.  The first is perhaps more understandable given people collectively tend to accept those who are older have more experience, so should be better at what they are tasked to do, including assessing the work of peers.  Older reviewers are also more likely to be fully tenured professors, as opposed to assistant professors.

The second is harder to grasp but  something I have run into,  having completed my postgraduate work at a foreign university (University of the West Indies) rather than an American or European one.  I suppose the applicable assumption involves the wrongheaded take which conflates the offshore medical school (say as found in a number of Caribbean nations) with all Third world foreign universities, i.e. being substandard. So, because some Caribbean  medical schools may be below par the reasoning is that all Caribbean, African or Asian universities (in whatever field)  must be as well.   This is an example of the fallacy of composition, or assuming that because one part of an aggregate (say a Caribbean medical school) has an undesirable attribute, then all foreign universities must as well.

For me, the kibosh landed on this fallacy after my appointment as a peer reviewer by the National Science  Foundation in the 80s  - for space and solar physics papers.  A major reason, of course, was on account of having a specialty in the area of statistical limitations related to solar flare and sunspot phenomena. (Including applications of the Poisson distribution to geo-effective flare frequency.)

If  the trope that foreign (e.g. 3rd world)  universities are inferior were true it would also follow that those who graduate from these universities would not get published as often as their peers in the 1st world. This is demonstrably false when one examines the total constellation of published papers in all scientific fields - and compares the authorship based on proportion of population by national origin.

But the biggest immediate impediment to better peer review is the one governed by gender bias. Most compelling here is the April issue of AGU's largest journal, Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), wherein one read the following statement:

Evaluation of our journals’ peer review practices suggests that women were less likely than men to be asked to review. Please help us improve the diversity of our reviewer pool by including women, young scientists, and members of other underrepresented groups in your suggested reviewers (e.g., age, ethnic, and international diversity).

Other data show a marked increase in the acceptance of the invitation  for women to review, especially by women scientists. This increase likely reflects a broader awareness of the gender bias issue prompted by the Nature paper,  It is important to point out that such awareness was not likely to be found in physics, geoscience, and astrophysics papers even 40 years ago.  This may be because too many women researchers - often in the assistant professor position - were rarely even considered as principal authors in a major paper.  Hardly any principal authors meant even fewer reviewers.

On another positive note,  AGU journals continue overall to expand the gender diversity of its reviewer pool, as shown in the graph below:

Although the gender diversity of reviewers has improved, the data so far for 2017 indicate that the GRL statement has not so far led to a significant change in recruiting reviewers for that journal who are younger or who hail from countries outside North America and western Europe. So why the persistence of reverse ageism as well as cultural -national preference for reviewers? We can't be sure but it's most likely because the referee position is still dominated by a certain type (e.g. older white males)  and these will only yield very grudgingly.

To their credit, AGU editors have been conducting workshops on reviewing, including recently at the International Geological Congress meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Japan Geoscience Union–AGU meeting in Chiba, outside of Tokyo, and in visits to universities and research institutions in China. AGU Publications has also conducted several webinars on reviewing, including the most recent on “How to Write Effective Reviews (and Improve Your Own Manuscript),” and will expand these efforts further.

The AGU also plans to continue to collect and report data on reviewer diversity in its scientific publishing and provide regular updates.  The payoff will ultimately be greater peer reviewer diversity - not only by gender- but also by age and national origin.  This is bound to enable more diverse papers in all disciplines to see publication. 

This does not mean the number of  climate change "skeptic" or "iconoclast" (aka denier) papers will see more publication, unless and until they can adhere to the rigors of science.  It might actually be better, since the deniers are really about economics, they seek to get published in that domain.  They can then focus their mental energy on the economic reasons for resisting climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions - which is what their specious science is really about.

Another Clueless Dimwit - Bruce Cannon Gibney - Thinks He Knows About Boomers

It's not an astounding revelation to point out that the Baby Boomers  are among the most vilified generations ever, usually by goofballs who lack any serious knowledge of the group and tend to shoot from the hip.  Most of the polemics issuing from these nattering nabobs of negativity - based on precious little real evidence or logic - insist we Boomers are about to usher in the fall of civilization as we know it. From Arch-Boomer nemesis Robert Samuelson -  who blames “entitlements” for an approaching fiscal train wreck-  to a spate of  has beens and copycats including P.J. O'Rourke, Joe Klein and  David Willets (in his book, ‘How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children’s Future and Why They Should Give It Back’) . To an imp they all carp about the "pathological narcissism or selfishness" of the Boomers as the root cause of all our national ills. It's incredible that up to now none of these losers have blamed the Black Death on us too. Occurred before our temporal era? No problem, they'd blame it on our former incarnations!

The latest  addition to this motley crew of hard up writers and petulant,  whiney little bitches is Bruce Cannon Gibney, via his book, “A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America,” which came out earlier this month. One wonders if this moron even has a clue what a sociopath is, to make such a broad and sweeping claim about an entire generation.

Perhaps the best insight on the sociopath as clinically defined (which is what I presume Gibney was trying to base his claim on) is the book by Dr. Martha Stout, 'The Sociopath Next Door'. She notes the attributes include seven distinguishing characteristics, such as deceitfulness, impulsivity, superficial charm and a lack of remorse. She  estimates as many as 4% of the population are conscienceless sociopaths who have no empathy or affectionate feelings for humans or animals. Add in those who exhibit some rudimentary controls of conscience and the total of sociopaths comes to 10 percent.

The Baby Boom contingent itself is now 74.9 million strong which means it makes up just over 24 percent of the U.S. population.  This means Gibney has splattered his "sociopath' brush too wide by over 50 percent. But no surprise there for a turkey who's probably only done minimal research and grabbed most of his material via anecdotes related to him by familial inbreds. (His own).

In his book - similar to most Boomer bashers-  Gibney claims that much of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 is "selfish, lacking in empathy and financially irresponsible." Like the semi-literates before him he uncritically adopts the tag of “Me Generation” -  a term coined by equally uninformed PR and media assholes at the time. Thus the baby boomers have long been described as self-interested, but as always - the level of conflation is mind boggling.

I refer here to the classical logical error committed by most Boomer bashers: the “fallacy of composition” i.e. when one claims that what is true of a part is true of a whole.  In this case, the “Boomers” he is referring to make up about 5 percent of the total generation. These are the entitled, 'silver spoon in the mouth'  twerps like Gee Dumbya Bush – who got his Harvard education via a legacy entitlement.  And Donald J. Trump, raised as a closet psychopath and liar by a father and mother leery of his pathological tendencies and who knew they had to instill in him a sense of grandiose entitlement.

So, in effect, what those like Gibney, Willets, Klein et al have done is attribute to an entire generation the attributes of perhaps 5 percent of the total. Again, the fallacy of composition magnified to stupendous proportions - to the extent none of these trash books are really worth the paper printed on. And hence, would only have appeal to ardent Boomer haters seeking to reinforce their confirmation bias.

More evidence that Gibney is a congenital idiot and has no clue what he's yapping about, when he writes:

“70 million Americans did appear to be sociopaths a few months ago [during the election],”

Again, what's he talking about? Can't he even get basic facts straight? If he's referring to votes, or voters, it makes no sense given 65,844,954 voters went for Hillary and  62,979,879 for Donald Trump. So where is this "70 million"?  How does this number enter to support his daft claims? If he's trying to tie it into the Boomers it's a lost cause, a fool's errand.

Gibney in his generalized twaddle claims a hallmark of the boomer is an inability to plan for the future, financially and otherwise. He writes:

 “They really just don’t save, and all these personal behaviors translate into international policy. Climate is another indicator of improvidence and lack of empathy — they don’t care really care about the environment, just about themselves.”

Really? Seriously? Then how come I, along with many of my friends and relatives (also Boomers) were able to save and do it conscientiously?  As for climate, last I checked, many of my posts the past year have been about climate change and the need for people to take cognizance of leaving a habitable world for future generations. My friends and relatives are also of the same mind, and most of us belong to groups such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and Waterkeepers' Alliance.  If we didn't care why are we walking to the grocery instead of using cars, recycling assiduously, and eschewing beef (as too water intensive)?    Why are many of us also invested to the extent of Will planning? Again, Gibney uses over-generalization like a narcotic. Hell, mayhap he was on a narcotic when he wrote this termite bait book.

His worst travesty is accusing us of "generational plunder". Accusing us wholesale  of  “the mass, democratically-sanctioned transfer of wealth away from the young and toward the Boomers,” and "making a mess of Social Security and Medicare",

This actually takes a page from one equally uninformed NY Times letter writer,  Daniel Bronheim, who reached full throated pitch and bile as he wrote three years ago:

 “The rising cost of Social Security and Medicare has for a generation crowded out adequate government investment in infrastructure, education and research. It has meant a huge and unjustified transfer of wealth from the young to the elderly, especially when it’s being funded by borrowing from the future”.

Bronheim, like Gibney,  gets his perceptual panties in a twist over elderly greed, but in fact, if he had more brains or common sense he’d recognize it’s the expanded military industrial complex which now consumes 58 percent of current expenditures. THAT is what’s responsible for leaving his younger generation with debt, poor job outlook, and transferred wealth. Does this nitwit not know, for example, that the Bushies pilfered Social Security monies to pay for their illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Yes, the Bushies were largely Boomers, but they were amongst the 5 % of sociopaths, not the much larger proportion of decent, hard working teachers, doctors, scientists, former Peace Corps volunteers I knew.

Gibney at numerous points goes into full blown hysteria blaming the boomers for nearly everything perceived as bad: abortion, divorce, overeating, high inflation, taking deferments during Vietnam, failing to launch a mass movement calling for the rebuilding of Vietnam after the war, crime, poor educational standards, corporate tax rates, adjunct professors.

All of which goes to show how uncritical, undisciplined thinking can lead one down the garden path to verbal chaos and total lack of credibility.   The inveighing against abortion is especially choice. So I can only presume he'd have preferred we go back to letting women use coat hangers to do their own abortions. Else what?  His bellyaching about "taking deferments during Vietnam" also strikes a note of discord given Vietnam was an illegal war anyway. It was hatched by LBJ under false pretenses using the Tonkin Gulf Resolution after it was claimed that two U.S. gunboats (the Maddox and Turner Joy) were fired on without provocation in international waters.

Perhaps the best clue this fool hasn't a clue and his book belongs in the nearest dumpster is when he makes reference to: “Pat Robertson fulminating about homosexuals, feminists, and praying for the deflection of hurricanes while his website minions opined on the afterlife of pets.”   Blissfully unaware that Robertson was born in 1930, 16 years  before the oldest boomer.  Is this a one off error? Fuck no. Gibney also has words for “feckless non-entities like Marco Rubio.” But Rubio, born in 1971, is nearly a decade younger than the youngest boomers.  If this goober doesn't even know the definition of a Baby Boomer, i.e. the year span defined for one to be a Boomer, how can he write about them?  It would be analogous to me writing about solar sprites and calling them sunspots!

If this mentally deficient asshole doesn't even know who qualifies as a Boomer and who doesn't,  why take anything he writes seriously?

Gibney complains that “many young boomers leapt at the neo-Malthusian nonsense peddled in the 1960s and 1970s by a slightly older generation of writers.”  Thereby trying to indict Paul Ehrlich (b. 1932), who wrote “The Population Bomb”.  Again, he misfires on Ehrlich being a Boomer, given he was born 14 years before 1946, the date of the oldest boomers' birth. Apart from that there is no "neo-Malthusian nonsense" as the world IS overpopulated in terms of limited resources. So, he's also a know nothing on this topic as well, see  e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/earth-day-alert-biggest-problem-remains.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/10/human-overpopulation-contributig-to.html

This derelict, delirious twit even criticizes Al Gore as "anti-environment"  and "a pork-barreling scenery wrecker.”  Huh?  Since when?

Beyond all that codswallop Gibney pronounces that:  “the story of the past forty years has been the substitution of sentiment for science” and that “the Boomers were the first modern generation to harbor really negative feelings about reality and science.”

Really? Seriously? That's not what I've beheld in the various scientific organizations I've been a member of including the American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union. These include cooperative research projects as well as papers presented at conferences.  What I saw was more substitution of "sentiment" for science in the Gen X'ers and Millennials - including too many of them carrying on with the bunkum that the Sun and "natural cycles" are responsible for global warming not CO2.

So I've no idea what Gibney is blabbering about.

Gibney is also glib in dismissing Boomers at making any positive contributions, period, from major advances in medicine and science, to arts and culture, to  civil rights and the rights of women, disabled people and gay people.  Did he even hear of the Civil Rights Act? Does he know (or care) how many Boomers literally put their bodies on the line- subjected to truncheon beatings and dogs?  This was when they joined the Freedom Marchers to Alabama, and Mississippi in 1964-66?  This was to help in signing up African-Americans for voter registration. Many I knew who left for MS while at Loyola returned so badly injured they were unable to continue their educations.  One, "Marty" from NYC, had to return home to recuperate after having his skull fractured by a racist pig's bat.

Other Boomer voting rights assistants were shot at and lost their lives, like those who accompanied and helped Viola Liuzzo in one of her voter drives. Does this piece of shit even know about that?  Does he know or grasp how the Boomers marching against the Vietnam War brought it to an earlier close? Or how Boomer journalists who trained cameras on the slaughter  and indiscriminate butchery (My Lai massacre)  assisted as well?  He also has some damned nerve carping about "rebuilding" in Vietnam after LBJ and Generals had much of the place "blowtorched" using napalm.

Is he aware of the Boomer engineers and scientists who helped put men on the Moon (later Apollo missions)? Who also designed the Viking craft for the Mars encounter in 1976 and contributed numerous experiments, research for Shuttle missions? Is he remotely aware of the Boomer scientists who helped make great advances in antibiotics, as well as more improved tests for cancer using enhanced technologies?  What about the advances made in fields from nutrition to gerontology which many of my Peace Corps colleagues also participated in?  How about the sheer number of us who returned home from volunteer assignments overseas to volunteer again in our own communities?

Yes, some of my generation were narcissists - but more were idealists - who believed in such moral ideals as equal rights for all, equal pay for both genders, and using science to advance humanity. The Boomer generation did have its share of sociopaths, but again, no  more than in later generations, such as Gen X and Millennials. (See, for example, the flick 'American Psycho' about a Gen X Wall Street broker sociopath and psychopath)

As I noted above, the chief problem of Gibney - apart from not recognizing who was a Boomer and who wasn't - is his tendency to wildly conflate. In the latter case he regularly conflates the Woodstock counterculture types ("hippies"), with the moderate liberal types (who served in Peace Corps or VISTA instead,  like me)  and their ideological right wing opposites.   So no surprise that by mixing the descriptions of all these groups in one pot he comes out with bare balderdash. Or,  as my Caribbean friends would say, Calalloo soup.

A perfect example of Gibney's "calalloo" - inspired Boomer bollocks is when he writes:

“As a group, the Boomers managed to be simultaneously for the war and against serving in it. Their responses to Vietnam were confused,”

But "they" weren’t confused, because "they" is not one homogeneous population.  Unless one is a congenital  ignoramus he cannot describe the Boomers by writing about us indiscriminately as an entire group. The reason is that the Boomers actually comprised three differing populations (at least)  as I indicated. By conflating them, Gibney ends up with gibberish and balderdash while committing the fallacy of composition.. What should he have done? Simple! Write:  "One faction of Boomers was pro-War and another was anti- War and marched against it, while another faction opposed the War but didn't actively inveigh against it choosing instead alternative service".  More complicated? Yes, but more honest, a trait Gibney seems to lack as much as Trump.

The takeaway of all this is that if you're going to write about the Baby Boomers be sure you don't over generalize, but instead grasp that separate factions comprised this generation. It also helps, when singling out the supposed travesties of individuals, you know whether indeed they are truly Boomers - or part of a different generation.

The conclusion for me is that Gibney's effort has only one practical use - as toilet paper if you're ever marooned on some island.

Don't Get Your Panties In A Twist, Conservos - NO "Libo" Is Looking The Other Way On Chicago Hate Crime

Obama refers to the Chicago attack as a hate crime - which it was. Contrary to Wing nuts' hysterical rants no liberals are "looking the other way" we just refuse to commit the fallacy of composition.

By now everyone not living under a rock is aware of the horrific attack on a mentally challenged white kid in Chicago by four black assailants. (No, I refuse to call them "apes" like some hysterical, racist commentators!)  If we are to parse and understand what transpired the first order of business is to ensure we aren't dragged down into racial epithets as well as committing logical fallacies. (Fallacy of composition, or attributing to an entire group or race the blame for the violent act of a few)  Contrary to the hysterical inputs of some bloggers President Barack Obama on Thursday delivered a measured response. He called the video showing four African-Americans torturing a white mentally disabled man in Chicago  “despicable", which is what it was.

As I played it back off the news from last night, it evoked the very human evil that I'd written about two days ago. Human evil driven by ignorance, and yes also hate - not too different from that which drives many white racists - and that includes their reptilian brain centers as well. I noted that one of the canards circulated about human evil is that it’s "irrational". If the person only knew better, or reasoned properly, he’d arrive at the generic good, and we'd all be better off.  I cited philosopher John Kekes who disposes of this myth quite forcefully (The Roots of Evil, p. 156.)  

As Kekes observed, abundant historical examples disclose that people often robustly justify their actions on the basis of a good perceived in their minds, but which in retrospect turns out to be evil. Therefore it’s not the lack of reason or rationality that infuses their actions but instead the false beliefs that supported the reasoning!

Thus, those innominate bloggers tempted to use this horrific Chicago hate crime to feed further  hatred of blacks in general are committing human evil.  They are prepared to interject a kind of "evil" based on false reasoning that this single act justifies wholesale disparagement and scapegoating of a race.. Again, "evil" in the sense it harms fellow citizens (innocent blacks not even born yet).

Obama told CBS2 Chicago:

“What we have seen as surfacing, I think, are a lot of problems that have been there a long time. Whether it’s tensions between police and communities, hate crimes of the despicable sort that has just now recently surfaced on Facebook.”

The Facebook video more generally focused a spotlight on crime in Chicago in advance of Obama’s Tuesday return to his adopted hometown to deliver his farewell address at McCormick Place. But in advance of that homecoming event Obama discussed the vile video beating and Chicago’s soaring murder rate and violence in interviews at the White House with reporters from five Chicago television stations.

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Obama told ABC7 Chicago is a “strange exception” to a national crime trend, saying.

“Ironically, what you’ve seen across the country is actually historically low rates of violence in our cities,”  which indeed, FBI crime stats support. So that makes Chicago an outlier.

Obama added:

“There are a lot of factors around that. But what I intend to do is to build off of some of the work that has been in done in other cities to intervene in violence, provide better support for youth that are at risk, and my presidential center and me personally, this is something where we want to join those who are intent on doing something about this. I want to be a part of the solution.”

Obama told WGN he is “frustrated” about Chicago crime..

Obama told NBC5 Chicago there was no one cause – or one answer to Chicago violence, asking:

“What is it about Chicago that has created an increase in homicides that we are just not seeing around the country?”

Adding::

"Gangs, the way police are allocated, the availability of guns and “pockets of poverty” all contribute," the president said.

Meanwhile, the brutal quartet that televised their savage act on FB will now face the music. The Cook County state’s attorney on Thursday filed hate crime charges against the four for the beating of the 18-year-old mentally disabled white kid.  They also face charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated unlawful restraint and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, according to the state’s attorney. In other words, the freaking book will be thrown at these assholes.

But - that should not be a license for racists or the unhinged to go on a crusade to justify more human evil by using this (exceptional) violent attack to smear all the people of color. That is committing the fallacy of composition even as it plays into what I wrote two posts ago: that human evil is often reasoned and rational, but using false logic, false beliefs or fallacies.  A perfect example of committing the fallacy of composition was one wingnut blogger who responded to Obama's remark that the "next generation will be smarter and more thoughtful about race",

By howling: "Newsflash! Ya fuckin' half breed mutt, these thugs ARE your next generation!"

Uh no, they are not. And why the need to hurl the "half breed mutt" epithet at President Obama as well as being a "skunk?. Those racial epithets for sure do not advance one's cause! There is simply NO objective evidence which unimpeachably leads one to extrapolate from the act of these 4 criminals to generalizing that it will be repeated by all future black teens. This is the fallacy of composition in action, attributing to a whole population motives or actions committed by a few. WHO would resort to this? Only a person willing to spread violence, hate and anarchy by ramping up one act - an isolated one- into a de facto epidemic (or predicted epidemic) of a next "generation".

In other words, this is the sort of illiberal false logic that contributes to further hate crimes and human evil - namely white on black assaults. (Of which we've seen thousands of cases over the past 70 years from lynchings of blacks in southern towns for being out at the wrong time, to white rapists going all out on young black women). And let's not forget the worst hate crime of the past several years, committed by one white thug - Dylan Roof. His slaughter of nine innocents in their own black church - after inviting Roof to partake of prayer with them.

But, I would not use Roof's vile hate crime- a mass murder in fact (for which he's expressed no remorse)  as a basis to interject hate against all whites, or even against all garden variety blogger racists, i.e. those who may invoke verbal violence but never carry it out. (Though many on the Left fear once Trump is installed into power the racists will have license to do so - given Steve Bannon will sit in the same Oval Office with Trump)

Let's get one more thing straight: no one on the Left that I know is "overlooking" this cruel act by four misguided youths from Chicago's mean streets or trying to bury it, or ignore it. We are merely skeptical of the motives of the many who DO use it, often to stir up more racial hatred, which is the last thing this nation needs right now.  Going into this new year we ought to be trying our level best to build more racial bridges not chasms. Using this vile attack to foment more hate, from the opposite POV, therefore is inimical to the welfare of our nation.

If the welfare of the nation is an aspiration shared by Trumpies, even those who bandy racist invective, it should lead to common ground and purpose. The alternative, of course, is Civil War,

Muslim Focus Groups Speak Out Against Demonization

The recent PBS special 'The Brain', featuring neuroscientist David Eagleman, was excellent because it not only touched on brain dynamics but on how our brains can become debased and their potential thwarted by hate speech and propaganda. Eagleman - showing actual data (e.g. from positive emission tomography) - revealed how genocides through history can be traced to a severe "reduction" in social connections - emerging from how we see others. In the case of genocides the thread that uniformly runs through them is the demonization of an entire human group, whether based on race, religion or some other cultural difference.

It was a sobering look, also, at how propaganda and hate speech can actually deform brains and cause those similarly reduced to aggregate individuals, thereby to persecute the "target group of the moment". This information is especially apropos now as we behold Muslims being singled out for demonization and lumped together despite the fact they come from 77 different countries and speak over 100 different languages.

How is it possible to do such indiscriminate lumping? Well it's possible because our brains, if we don't care for their health and what goes in, are susceptible to "social reduction". They are also subject to having the fear centers based in the amygdala triggered and then ramped up by irresponsible rhetoric.

Hence, it was interesting to hear one Muslim mother advise others in a focus group on CBS (convened by Frank Luntz) that they should not watch the Republican Debate because it would be too full of hate speech. As she put it to Luntz:

"I knew that subjecting our children to the hateful stereotyping and the lumping of Muslims with terrorism is actually something that psychologically impacts them. I do not want my children to be subjected to the vilification of their faith. I will not allow Donald Trump to tell my kids how they should feel about being Muslim".

Another young Muslim woman told Luntz:

"This is my faith and it is part of who I am. And it is painful to see how it has been so demonized."

Another Muslim lawyer observed:

"We can't hide behind the fact that non-Muslim Americans right now do feel afraid. Not because of the fact of safety being a concern but because somebody looks different"

Another pointed out:

""Why are we being picked on? We're not out there chanting 'death to America!'.  We don't have any bombs in our hands! We're just being ourselves and this is a narrative that's missing right now".

Indeed, but the last guy misses the point of the mass commission by fearful Americans of the fallacy of composition.  This is extending attributes to an entire group only actually demonstrated by a subset. Thus, because a small set of twisted radicals acts out then all Muslims are seen as having the same potential. It would be as if we atheists expressed monumental fear of right wing Christians because one of them acted out and shot up a Planned Parenthood Clinic.

Incredibly, some inept thinkers actually believe the resistance to committing the fallacy of composition vis-à-vis Muslims actually represents some kind of "reverse psychology" to try and protect Muslims. It is nothing of the sort, but rather trying to point out a major logical error to avoid trashing reason and critical thinking amidst hysterical yelping.

To make the further point of hysteria, another member of a focus group held by Scott Pelley referred to "idiotic questions" being "manufactured out of thin air" put up on rightist websites which have no basis in fact or reality. Many of the questions, according to the respondent, "were so vicious and absurd they didn't merit being dignified by any kind of answers."

Another college student made a totally apt point to Pelley that:

"The Qu'ran was written in Arabic which is a deeply metaphorical language where one word has hundreds of meanings. So, if you want to define some passage in a violent sense you're going to be able to so define it because of the wide breadth of interpretations. In the same way one can define it in a peaceful sense which over a billion people now do".

Hmmm....sounds remarkably similar to the dangers my old Loyola University Exegesis prof used to belabor as regards biblical passages translated from Greek and Aramaic. There is too vast a disconnection with modern English to be able to take those passages literally.

Another Muslim college student told Pelley:

"I don't understand logically how it makes sense to say that ISIS represents all Muslims when they're killing the very people that they claim they represent."

The point she misses is that when brains are attacked and then colonized by propaganda (the most serious form of consciousness reduction according to David Eagleman) then logic and rational thought go out the widow. All one is left with is emotional hysteria and unreason, as well as hate.

This gets back to the point made by an expert from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London , that most U.S. security specialists and the Pentagon take very seriously:

"ISIS thrives on polarization. They want people to say they hate Muslims. This is the foundation of their success"

This is not coming from any "libo" or "libtard" but from a serious geopolitical organization cited in The Wall Street Journal  ('Islamic State Tries To Forge Divide in the West', Dec. 11, p. A9):

And why it should be so hard to grasp that every bit of political bombast directed at Muslims, or hurling of the epithet "raghead" on a blog or FB post, or  mention of selective screening is another promotion for ISIS' agenda is mystifying. But perhaps explained by the brains of the sources of hostility being taken over by propaganda - as Eagleman noted.

This is why it is extremely dangerous to express vitriol or mass rejection of Muslims here in the U.S. because it plays directly into the ISIS narrative that all Muslims are unwelcome here - so why not join them.

We can't afford this kind of propaganda acceptance which truly undermines our free speech as well as national security as it sows fear.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/65233/the-republican-path-to-the-dark-side

Excerpt:

Whether it's fear of same-sex couples getting married, fear of the government taking away the people's guns or fear of Black men, they've always understood that fear works to motivate their white base.

Fear works because it appeals to our basic animal instinct to stay safe, and it makes the simplest, inane and most downright evil solutions sound smart.....Terrorism is a problem; no one denies that. But Republicans and their enablers in the media are blowing it way out of proportion. There's no reason Americans should be as scared about it as they are

Why Can't Muslim Haters See They're Playing Into ISIS' Hands?

Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau greets Syrian refugees Friday morning in Toronto "to show the world how to open hearts and welcome people.”

The Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov hit it squarely on the head when he wrote ('Islamic State Tries To Forge Divide in the West', Dec. 11, p. A9):

"The group's objective is clear: To bait Western societies into an indiscriminate backlash that, if successfully provoked, would disrupt these Muslims' bonds with their countries of citizenship and residence - and as it happened with Iraq's Sunnis- validate Islamic state's claim to be their only protector"

That means every anti-Muslim wag of the tongue from a blithering idiot like Trump, every off the cuff social media insult, and every hurling of the epithet "raghead" on a blog or FB post  is another promotion for ISIS' agenda.  Quoting an expert from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London (ibid.):

"ISIS thrives on polarization. They want people to say they hate Muslims. This is the foundation of their success"

Thus, by stupidly invoking Muslim hatred Trump and his Trumpites are playing directly into ISIS' hands by disrupting the very Muslim bonds with their nations of citizenship  to validate the Islamic State's insidious claim as their only protector. Also, as a recent salon.com article pointed out  - the incessant shaming of political correctness (in trying to contain his anti-Muslim diatribes) is merely fashioning an excuse to spew hate. It isn't really about attacking "PC" at all but trying to justify hate speech.

This take is further reinforced in the Dec. 12-13 WSJ Review article, 'How to Beat This Enemy' (p. C1), noting:

"The theocratic ideology of Islamism thrives on division, polarization and claims of Muslim victimhood.. Islamic State's leaders insist that the U.S. and the rest of the West  are waging a global war against all Islam and Muslims.  This is obvious nonsense but by a combination of provocation and self-fulfilling prophecy  Islamic State is doing everything possible to make it a reality  - helped along, alas, by Donald Trump and his call for complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

That, along with directing hateful epithets at Muslims on social media, or tossing severed pigs' heads on the doorways of Mosques (as recently happened in Texas) propels the very polarization that ISIS wants. By contrast, as shown by Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau - when one welcomes Syrian refugees one shows he transcends being a puppet for the polarizers or ISIS. Trudeau also made clear in The Toronto Star that "We get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about, but we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome people.”

As The Star explained:  "there is much to be said for a nation-state self-consciously showcasing its treatment of stateless refugees. Far from being empty symbolism, it serves as a defiant testament of Canadians coming to the aid of people a world away." Indeed, so why aren't American politicians or more of our people able to show such generosity? I suspect because the 'lizard brains' of too many have been triggered by lizard-brained politicos.

This is why too many Americans - say on seeing the image at the top of this post- will  think Trudeau is "pro-terrorist", unhinged, or simply a gullible dope for his welcome of the first of up to 25,000 refugees - in a nation of barely 12 million. But Trudeau is, in fact,  showing the rational way to respond for any Western nation that really wants to subdue ISIS. The videos showing the Canadians in Toronto welcoming Syrian refugees effectively amounts to an educational video for Americans on how to deal with ISIS.

Another, lesser aspect dealt with by author Maajid Nawaz is that both liberals and Muslim- hating pro- Trump conservatives are making critical errors in the interpretation of ISIS in relation to Islam.

The liberal error is the fear of "calling Islamist ideology by its proper name". Thus, too many liberals fear the Muslim community and religiously intolerant "will hear the word 'Islam'  and simply assume all Muslims are being held responsible for the excesses of the Jihadist few"

In other words, liberals fear the word use will be an example of the fallacy of composition.  But as Nawaz notes:

"It is as disingenuous to argue that Islamic State is entirely divorced from Islam as it is to assert it is synonymous with Islam. Islamic State does have something to do with Islam. That something is the way in which Islamists justify their arguments using Islamic scripture ."

As I pointed out in my December 8 post, while it's true the Qu'ran contains outlandishly extreme passages in terms of  "jihad" and  "infidels",  it is also true that most Muslims today don't literally accept those statements any more than  Christians literally accept the extreme sanctions such as stoning homosexuals or adulterers to death as seen in Deuteronomy or Kings. For instance, 2 Kings 2, 23:24 allows children to be slain by wild animals ("she bears")  if they insult their elders or any authority  (in this case a prophet).  Similarly, by Deut. 22:22 both John Edwards and his former girlfriend (Riele Hunter) would have been stoned to death.

The point is that enlightened followers of a religion do not mindlessly follow its every admonition, phrase injunction or prescription. Even most Catholics I know no longer follow the idiotic anti-birth control dogma. (Which to be fair, is nowhere in the Bible anyway.) I've also met Catholics that no longer believe in papal infallibility but they still remain nominal Catholics.

Why can't the same be true for Muslims? Just because certain sections of their book says "slay the infidels" doesn't mean all Muslims will feel compelled to act like zombies or robots and obey it any more than most Christians will feel the need to follow an injunction from Leviticus to slay homosexuals.

We have to give all religious people- including Muslims -  a modicum of credit for common sense, sound judgment and temperance.  It is baseless then to inveigh against and vilify an entire religion based on what a minor subset of radical fundamentalists (who adhere to every word) do.

Thus, the term "radical Muslims" ought to be used in the same way we might use the term radical right wing Christians - say like Kevin Swanson- who last month convened a National Religious Liberties Conference and invoked Leviticus 20:13  as well as Romans 1, to stone homosexuals to death. (He later said we "didn't have to do this yet" because "there was still time for them to change")

In either case - radical extremist Christian or radical extremist Muslim-  we are looking at an unhinged segment that seeks to justify heinous acts using arguments selectively based on their more primitive textual references - interpreted literally. Since both Bible and Qu' ran contain such passages then it stands to reason not all members of the respective belief system can be guilty. Only that subset that believes in taking the words literally and acting out.

To fail to make that distinction, namely in the case of radicalized Muslims like Tashfeen Malik,  is to commit two gross errors: 1) to fail to name and call out the Islamist extremists who adopt the jihad aspects of the Qu'ran literally ("the Voldemort effect" according to Namaz), and 2) the failure to distinguish rational Muslims who do not take jihadist passages literally from the radical fundamentalists who do.

On a solidly good note, our local Islamic Society here in the Springs is now holding weekly open houses to explain the basis of their faith to locals. This includes the clear separation of passages that today's Muslims do not take literally, according to organizer Arshad Yousufi. As he noted over the weekend:

"There are a lot of misconceptions about Islam which I think harms the American attitude toward Muslims."

The purpose of the open houses and question sessions - which have seen 'full house' attendance, is o clear the air and reduce these hostile attitudes which only serve to feed ISIS propaganda.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/11/donald_trump_is_just_this_destructive_why_his_incendiary_rhetoric_is_making_the_world_a_more_dangerous_place/

Even The Right's Resident Troglodytes Can't Process Bernie's Rise

Thousands turned out to feel the Bern at LA Memorial Sports Arena Aug. 10

You have to forgive some of those who opine on politics, as well as on global warming in the pages of The Wall Street Journal. Though they often appear to have some educational or institutional creds, once one applies the dissection tool of critical scrutiny a lot of it vanishes under the huff and puff of PR. Such is the case with a recent WSJ piece 'The Democrats' Socialist Surge' by "Manhattan Institute" lightweight, Jason L. Riley.

Like his WSJ  buddy Gerald Seib, Riley clearly knows very little and what he does know is skewed wrong by his ideology. That is the lens through which he judges reality so no surprise the reality  comes out twisted or debauched.

We who've been following Bernie Sanders are aware of the huge crowds he's been amassing - even despite interruptions (as in Seattle) by nuisance protesters from 'Black Lives Matter', who really need to adjust their own reality goggles and keep their powder dry for the 17 Repukes. As opposed to making their own ideological, economic allies targets of "friendly fire". Note they couldn't get 1 inch past Hillary's Secret Service detachment, which shows me they are only interested in  disrupting soft, friendly targets. As liberal talk radio  host Bill Press put it on Chris Hayes 'All In' two nights ago, they are "making the perfect the enemy of the good."    Adding:

"You target the people who disagree with you, not your friends."  Bingo!

Alicia Garza, co-creator of BLM, promised that  "all candidates will be disrupted", but I will believe it when I see it. Now, Ms. Garza, sic your troops after Donald Trump, Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee!  Cease with the friendly fire tactics which will only backfire on your group.

Moving on, we saw over the weekend, 28,000 turned out to see and hear Bernie in Portland, OR, while 27,500 came out to see him in LA on Monday at the Memorial Sports Arena. And then, on Wednesday, it was announced on MSNBC and CBS that the Bern had broken through in New Hampshire and he was now ahead of Hillary by 44 percent to 37 percent. (Hillary 'Third Way' supporters quoted in the WSJ suggested she "had no plans to attack Bernie because eventually the Lefties will come around to support her". Well, maybe, maybe not.)

All this has the right wing media troglodytes so worried they're pissing in their pants, or on the verge of acquiring the new DSM disorder, psychosis risk syndrome - a pernicious display of paranoia that can lead to paranoid schizophrenia if untreated. What is their paranoia? Well that that the WHOLE Dem party has now gone "socialist".

Gimme a break already!

Riley in his forlorn WSJ column is especially guilty of this bollocks as when he goes through a whole mini-history of socialism (most inapplicable to democratic socialism) then concludes Debbie Wasserman Schultz wasn't able to answer the recent question put to her by MSNBC's squawker Chris Matthews ('What's the difference between a Democrat and Socialist?') because:

"These days it's largely a distinction without a difference."

In other words this moron commits the fallacy of composition on a mega -scale (or moron scale) designating the minority Left base of the party as being its entire aggregate - totally leaving out the Third Way Neoliberals, as well as Neocons who easily comprise 75% of the party.

By saying this is a "distinction without difference" Riley is claiming the Democratic Party - so far to the Right now most of us from the 60s don't recognize it - is really without Neoliberal capitalists, or Neocon warmongers, But IF that were so, how explain all the bailouts of the banks, bankers as well as GM, when a REAL socialist gov't would have nationalized them all?  Also, how explain an immense defense budget - still greater than the next 22 nations combined - when a REAL socialist party (or Democratic Socialist ) would have halved it by now?

And, not to be too obvious - but NO socialist worth his salt (or party) would ever have tolerated a "debt commission" and considered a chained CPI to cut and gut Social Security!

Riley has no genuine reasons only paranoid suspicions for conflating Democrats and Socialists.. For example, because the Dems "allowed Sanders to caucus with them"  then the Democrats must all be the same party as Sanders, Socialist. This is the kind of reasoning I'd expect from a half- bright three year old, when any sensible person would grasp the Dems allowed it out of needing greater voting numbers vis-a-vis the Senate Repukes.

Oh, oh, I forgot "he also was granted seniority status to push a progressive agenda".   And what, pray tell, was this agenda?

Riley then ticks off Sanders' pushing for single payer healthcare (which would actually SAVE us over $500 m the next ten years compared to Obamacare), and pushing for a 50 percent reduction in military spending. That last, he appears to forget, was actually a transfer of spending - from buying new military toys and hardware to increasing VA benefits for troops. A push for which Sanders now has many thousands of grateful vets behind him.

Lastly, Riley whines that Sanders' agenda would only appeal to "upper middle class professionals obsessed with income inequality". But I have news for him, all intelligent people are concerned with that, and if he isn't he's an even bigger moron than I first thought.

His quotation from the book 'The Right Nation' that:

"In America socialists cast their seed on barren ground"

Misses the larger point that when polls are taken regarding which PROGRAMS Americans want, as opposed to which political philosophy, they invariably pick the more "socialist" choices -  showing at heart that Americans ARE socialists  - at least democratic socialists!

Thus, they DO want Social Security there for them, by nearly 70-30 percent majorities.

They also want Medicare to be their healthcare, as opposed to private insurance or even Obamacare

And they favor food stamps and Medicaid for the poorer among us.

Having supported these "socialist" programs in polls, they just need to be reminded that ideally their political philosophies ought to be in synch with their program choices! And conversely, voting for conservatives undermines their program preferences.

Again, political education can be as important as historical education.

See also:

http://www.salon.com/2015/08/13/larry_wilmore_mocks_black_lives_matter_activists_at_sanders_rally_black_manners_matter_as_well/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-reich/63389/4-recurring-criticisms-of-bernie-sanders-and-why-theyre-wrong