James F Lincoln

"If some way could be found so that competition could be eliminated from life, the result would be disastrous. Any nation and any people disappear if life becomes too easy. There is no danger in a hard life as all history shows. Danger is from a life that is made soft by lack of competition."

"Development in many directions is latent in every person. The difficulty has been that few recognize that fact. Fewer still will put themselves under the pressure or by chance are put under the pressure that would develop them greatly. Their latent abilities remain latent, hence useless."

An Evolutionary (sic) Idea

A conversation with a friend (atheist) horrified me a few days ago when I asked him about his purpose for living. He said that he was here to further the evolutionary process. He then started attacking the church for supporting laws that inhibited this process such as euthanasia and abortion. He went on to share his ideas on killing the sick and deformed to cleanse the gene pool (probably not taking the 'veil of ignorance' very seriously). He classified these statements by saying that he would never agree to it unless it was socially acceptable but that this is the direction he believes we should be working towards.

I have known this guy for almost 2 years and I never imagined his core beliefs were such. I asked him if he would read some papers on the material evidence for creation and he laughed at me. He said that God was created just after WW2 (absolutely no idea how he got this) so that people would have values and behave in a socially cohesive manner. When I asked him where he had heard this he claimed, 'on an SBS documentary'. He said he had no time to look into the fabricated 'evidence' for a myth and left it at that.

Since that conversation I have spent hours raking the net looking for proof of evolution. I know that it's impossible for me to convince the reader of the unbiased approach I took in doing this research however so that you can follow my thought process, I had decided that I would rather be fully convinced of evolution than unsure either way.

What I found was an endless debate between every evolutionist with access to the net and the AiG (Answers in Genesis) team. Once you waded through the steady stream of abuse (towards young earth creationists), there were some rather level headed arguments from both sides.

I think the reason this debate is not being settled is because it is based on the wrong field of expertise. If we want to know what happened in the past, don't we look at history? And when history is limited shouldn't science only be used to present a hypothesis?

The problem that creationists face in arguing their point is that evolutionists only accept 'material' evidence. Why is this a problem? Because material evidence can say whatever you want it to, depending on your initial framework.

For example, there is a claim on absolutely every evolution website that says that there are four times as many scientists that reject the account of the holocaust than there are who reject evolution. (I am yet to find the original publication or indication of an actual survey.) They claim that this proves that evolution must be true because the majority of learned people believe so. A creationist could argue that this in fact proves that scientists are not thoroughly intelligent when it comes to topics outside their field of expertise. (May i also point out that my atheist friend who believes God was created after WW2 is probably the smartest engineering student that UTAS will ever get.) There are also problems of adverse selection within a scientific institution. (Its like advertising a job for women only and being surprised that only a few men turn up.)

So if neither party are able to convince the other of their beliefs then what is to be done?

Soft Paternalism

One of my subjects at uni this semester (micro-economic theory and policy) is dedicated to analyzing welfare changes and in particular converting the infamous 'util' measure (an ordinal measure of preferences) to a dollar value. This (to me anyway) is extremely exciting stuff because now all of the theories about consumer behavior have some application.

As with most new things I learn, I spent hours daydreaming about how I could change the world with this new found knowledge. This got me thinking about the definition of welfare and prompted a bit of 'on-the-side study'.

So I found a video lecture (by George Loewenstein, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University) on 'lite (soft) paternalism'. Paternalism stems from the idea that people may not want whats best for them and therefore need a 'parent' to guide them in making decisions. So soft paternalism is basically not quite big brother but almost. Consumers still have complete choice over their actions but a governing body skews incentives towards 'better' products. For example, fast food tax to persuade us to eat healthier.

So is welfare to be measured on the conventional method of 'consumer knows best' or by a standard set by a governing body?

If you are anti soft paternalism think about the already existing policies like cigarette tax and (to a lesser extent) import tarrifs. Should we lobby against them?

If you are pro soft paternalism, how far do we go?

A little dream I had a few nights ago that I thought was kinda funny.

So I was outside Richard Dawkins house in the middle of the night and attempting to get his attention by holding the intercom button down. Finally his voice came through.

"Yes...who is it?"
"My name is Jacob." I replied, somehow inexplicably indignant that he did not recognize my voice.
"Who? what do you want?"
"I have something very important to tell you."
"Go away. How did you find my house?"
"By chance."

A Memory to Avert Evil?

'Know then that there is nothing more lofty, nor more powerful, nor more healthy nor more useful later on in life than some good memory, and particularly one that has been borne from childhood, from one's parents' home. Much is said to you about your education, but a beautiful sacred memory like that, one preserved from childhood, is possibly the very best education of all...and if only one good memory remains within our hearts, then even it may serve some day for our salvation.'

Alyosha, a character in Dostoyevsky's 'Brothers Karamazov', made this speech to a group of youngsters after the burial of their friend Ilyushechka.

In the context of the book, the reference to a good memory is not simply a great Christmas or an especially generous gift, it more specifically refers to a time where you did something good completely off your own back. This point is very important as I am not trying to promote wealth as a surefire way of raising kids.

I truly believe that the fundamental good things like love, compassion, grace, etc are not taught (although it flourishes in accommodating environments), rather they are innate characteristics. This may be a stretch but I wonder if the utilisation of one of these innate characteristics is the only method of establishing true independence as it is the only thing we haven't been explicitly taught. And maybe experiencing this true independence stores away this memory so that in the future when things get tough, you can always look back and say "yes, I was good that day, bold and honest". Sometimes just the knowledge that at one point you were good, gives you the motivation to resist evil.