Health Care and Socialism

Outrage at town hall meetings, fomented by mostly uneducated, far-right ideologues like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. None of these individuals earned even an undergraduate degree (Limbaugh -- despite his self-professed "talent on loan from God" -- even failed a course called Ballroom Dancing). So what do they know? Not much, it turns out, and neither do the exceptionally uneducated people vituperating incoherently at town hall meetings across the country. I suggest that people actually learn what socialism is before they discuss it. I suggest that people try to understand the difference between socialism and Marxism, or socialism and capitalism, before they shout about socialization in public spaces. Here are some facts that help clear the waters muddied by rabid, uninformed people:

-- The US is the only nation in the industrialized West without a government-run, single-payer system. In all other nations, health care is considered a universal human right, and access is denied to no one.

-- And, in all these other nations, health care is actually better than in the US, based on certain objective criteria of evaluation. The World Health Organization, for example, ranks the US 37th among countries around the world in terms of health care quality. And guess who is above us on the list? Answer: countries with socialized health care systems.

-- The US is ranked 30th (among UN member states) with respect to life expectancy. And guess who is above us? Answer: countries with socialized health care systems.

-- In terms of cancer survival rates, the US is tied with Japan and France for the top spot -- both of which have socialized health care systems, and which rank far above the US is most other categories.

More stats could easily be adduced, but one gets the picture.

The fear that socializing medicine will bring about a decline in health care is factually unfounded. Countries with socialized systems consistently rank better than the US in virtually all categories of assessment. This is especially deplorable since the US probably has the best doctors in the world. Thus, the reason for our low ranking must not be poorly trained doctors, but a system explicitly designed to make money rather than help people. Don't believe me? Then consider the following discussion, which occurred just before privatized health care first emerged:


Again, one must be exceptionally uneducated to think that socialized medicine is going to make things worse. The facts simply do not support this contention.

Unfortunately, Obama's plan will not establish what these other countries have -- it will not completely socialize medicine. A week ago, Fox News reported that Obama's own doctor rejects Obama's plan (article in the Huffington Post), but they failed to mention why. The reason: it doesn't go far enough in eliminating the greedy, money-grubbing, for-profit insurance companies that are to almost exclusively to blame for the US's poor ranking in the world. I completely agree with Obama's doctor. But before criticizing Obama, people out to make an effort to understand what socialization entails and how it would change health care in the US. (See here for more.)

Sundry Songs...

Kenntnis {f}; Wissen {n}; Erkenntnis {f}: knowledge

I consider myself (what I call) a "strong fallibilist." This is to say, not only do I hold that I might be wrong about any given belief, but that I probably am wrong. Indeed, given the history of human thought (see Putnam's "pessimistic meta-induction"), it is highly unlikely that I am entirely correct about any claim I make (although I may still be more correct than others). See my new paper on biological mechanisms, published in Erkenntnis, here.

Olbermann on Lowry

Socialism for Corporations

"Bailout bill fails; Dow plunges"

What now? In the capitalist spirit, the damn corporations need to "pick themselves up by the bootstraps," rather than relying on government intervention. After all, that's what we the people have been doing. (No one helped me pay for my doctor's visits when I didn't have health insurance.) What an absurd, stupid, irrational, infuriating, illogical, inconsistent, profit-over-people, business-first-people-last double standard!

"Predator lenders." Nice.

Palin's Astounding Ignorance

Wow.

Doesn't God care about overpopulation?

Headline: "Canadian Woman Gives Birth to 18th Child." Explanation (from the father): "We never planned how many children to have. We just let God guide our lives, you know, because we strongly believe life comes from God and that's the reason we did not stop the life." See post below.

Added July 30th: Yet another example of utter stupidity.

Pareidola and "the God illusion"

As the bottom of this blog page states, I'm an exponent of the thesis that humans are not, despite what one might prima facie think, particularly smart organisms. The following pictures are cases of pareidolia: Random textural "patterns" in various quotidian objects (mis)interpreted, like a Rorschach inkblot image, as significant (e.g., as Jesus, the Virgin Mary, etc.).

Does reality have a liberal bias?

At the White House Correspondent’s Association Dinner in 2006, Stephen Colbert declared that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Is this true? Consider the following few points:

(i) A recent study published in The Forum found that only 15% of professors at U.S. universities identify as conservative, while an overwhelming 72% identify as liberal.
(ii) A New York University study recently found that “individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners,” but that the reason for this asymmetry of subjective well-being is that “conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities” more than liberals.
(iii) One finds a revealing prima facie statistical relationship between education level and political orientation. (There are of course notable exceptions among both conservatives and liberals, and it’s worth keeping in mind that although an education may incline one towards a more rational, fact-based worldview, it does not entail that one assume such a posture.) Take some of the most prominent ideologues of the conservative pole: Sean Hannity, an “indifferent student,” dropped out of New York University, never to earn a college degree; Rush Limbaugh, whose mother reports that “he flunked everything,” including a Modern Ballroom Dancing course, dropped out of Southeast Missouri State University, never to earn a college degree; George W. Bush, a self-described “average student,” received “mostly Cs” at Yale University; Karl Rove, who is probably least well-known as an MC, (apparently) dropped out of three colleges (he stayed in college to avoid the Vietnam draft), never to earn a college degree; etc. One the antipode of the political sphere, one finds the paradigms of liberal thought, most of whom are highly educated, rational, and fact-based in their worldviews; e.g., Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Howard Zinn, Keith Olberman, Rachael Maddow, etc.
(iv) Take note someday of the Junk Science articles written by fideist Steven Milloy for the Opinion section of foxnews.com. Very often, one finds headlines such as “Global Warming Alarmists Aim to Lower the Standard of Living,” while just below, in the Science section, one finds headlines such as “Report: North Pole May Be Ice-Free This Summer.” I wrote Milloy about this embarrassing discrepancy—viz., that on the very same page, apposed one section apart, a pontifical opinion piece claims that arguments for global warming are specious and alarmist while a peer-reviewed science paper (or AP article summarizing the paper) states just the opposite—and his editor, Barry Hearn, replied as follows: “You'd have to ask FNC's editors why they uncritically post AP items, or site layout or anything else. […] The root cause here would seem to be NOAA's fundraising oportunism [sic] waving the ‘warming’ flag.”

It's no surprise that Bush has consistently cut funding for education. As George Orwell once said, “hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.”

Hitchens and Falwell

An absolutely hilarious interview, on FoxNews, with Christopher Hitchens about the late Jerry Falwell's timely demise.

Song #5

This song is entitled "Smile (The Arboretum)." It was inspired by the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Planes, outside of Boston. The lyrics are: Blue mist skies/I miss your sighs/Green washes to white eyes/Smile/Flitting field/Sways in the breeze/Shadows of blissful ease/Smile all day long/Cool spring air/All through my hair/Movement is everywhere/Smile/Restless mind/Some peace to find/Nature for humankind/The arboretum.

Humanism vs. Scientism

The following is an email I sent to a friend—an aspiring neuroscientist—who espouses a rather pejorative, and surprisingly common (especially, my wife reports, at institutions such as MIT), view of the humanities. The question posed was: If you had to choose between science and the humanities to propagate through/to society for its amelioration, which would you choose? His answer was, of course, the former, on the assumption that the humanities are (what Bertrand Russell calls, in Education and the Good Life) "ornamental" rather than "instrumental," and that disciplines with instrumental value are axiologically better than those with mere ornamental value. Here it is:

The answer would depend entirely upon the purposes of "spreading" it to society; and these purposes might depend on the nature of that society itself. For example, the modern era of Baconian "technoscience" is marked by (i) (borrowing from Weizenbaum's critique of AI) an "imperialism of instrumental rationality," (ii) a "technological mood," and (iii) what some thoughtful critics of modernity call "reverse adaptation."

The first points at the ability of clever educated people today to solve increasingly abstruse problems—i.e., to acquire means to an end, but (very often) without questioning the end itself. (E.g., we know how to build thermonuclear weapons, but fall short with respect to the more reflective, thoughtful, philosophical task of determining why we build them.) The second points to a natural offshoot of the capitalist ideology (which has deeply penetrated even—or especially—science): one begins to see nature (including other human beings) as "standing reserves"—as objects for exploitation (Heidegger). The third points to the fact that, along with the first two, the standards and criteria by which we judge the value of technology are universalized, now being applied to everything (Langdon Winner). The point is this: the statement that you'd choose science over philosophy because it (philosophy) is not "useful" is loaded with unexamined and thoroughly "normative" notions about what ought to count as valuable; and these unexamined notions are not self-evident, but must be justified before one accepts them. In other cultures—indeed, some would argue, in far more enlightened cultures, even though their capacity to manipulate and deform nature (thanks to science) was less developed—the usefulness of X was not the criterion by which X's value was determined. Again, in our capitalist milieu, it's common for people to uncritically assume that use alone (or at least primarily) is criterial of value; but this needs to be examined.

Two points: (1) I'd be very careful about "discipline chauvinism," especially without familiarity of the disparaged discipline (e.g., philosophy, literature, etc.). As someone (part of a growing number) of academics who "swing both ways"—towards the humanities and science—I encounter individuals on both sides with a rabid and often highly irrational abhorrence for those on the other side. This is very upsetting, since (at least in my experience) the primary reasonStructures, in which he adduces a substantial amount of empirical (i.e., historical) evidence to show that scientific theories do not in fact describe reality, and that one theory replaces another, over generations, not through a rational process in which evidence is objectively examined, experiments are carefully performed, etc., but rather through a merely rhetorical process of persuasion and, for lack of a better word, coercion (although such coercion is subtle and insidious). And again, there is a lot of empirical evidence supporting this, which at least renders it plausible. for such a posture is that these hard-core exponents (of humanism or scientism) are simply unaware of what the other side does, what it offers, what it accomplishes, what it is about, etc. For example, many scientists would be surprised—and, I think, rather enlightened—to discover extremely robust "metascientific" theories that see the enterprise of science as no more progressive than, say, the enterprise of painting (which clearly doesn't move forward). In fact, the most cited book of the twentieth century was Kuhn's

(2) It would help, I think, to read those SEP articles to get an idea of what exactly philosophers do. (Incidentally, I should add that almost every major scientist since the Scientific Revolution has been an omnivorous reader—and active contributor!—to the philosophy of science, including: Newton, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Hawking, etc. Darwin, Morgan, Watson & Crick, Gould, Pinker, Dawkins, etc. just to name a few that come to mind; as well as many in numerous other scientific domains. Thus, a pejorative view of philosophy offends not just philosophers, but most of the "great" scientists as well ;-) Philosophers of science, for example, ask the most fundamental—and therefore difficult—questions about science: What are theories? What are laws of nature? What does it mean to explain a phenomenon? Is science really objective? etc. These issues have attracted attention of many great philosophers and scientists, and they turn out to be many orders of magnitude more stymieing than might be thought at first glance. It would take many books to explicate them in detail—but the point is simple: Such questions are not in the least superfluous, but concern, in the most fundamental way, the very validity, rationality and objectivity of science.

Thus, the philosophy of science adds a profound richness and depth to one's understanding of science as a (maybe the best?) "strategy" for acquiring knowledge about the universe. Suddenly, what was once accepted without critical reflection becomes an entirely new and extraordinary realm of intellectual curiosity: If theories explain through the formulation of laws of nature, how is Darwinian theory explanatory, since it posits a mechanism rather than a universal generalization? Or, if the theoretical entities that scientific theories posit don't really exist (as many of the greatest scientists and philosophers of the mid-twentieth century claimed), then what good is science as a source of knowledge? Or, if our observation is always influenced by the theories we hold, can scientific experiments ever really be objective?

This is a long email, I know—but far, far shorter than it ought to be. [...] Anyway, I've convinced many humanists of the value of science, and I'd love to convince you of the value of philosophy as well. Talk to you later, Phil

Song #4

This song, entitled "A New Historiography," takes its lyrics from Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions; the audio is of astronauts during a space shuttle takeoff. The best feature of the song, which, incidentally, I don't think is quite as good as others (see below), is the bassline. (From The Science of Dreams album, which put to music texts from notable philosophers, scientists and mathematicians.)

The Cavendish Principle

I post this because if you haven't seen it yet, you ought to! I suggest calling it the "Cavendish principle": The fundamental design of the Cavendish banana is just right or fine-tuned to allow it to be easily eaten. (Cf. with the anthropic principle.) Yet another empirical datum corroborating the theistic hypothesis of an intelligent designer.



(Incidentally, for a very interesting discussion of the anthropic principle in the context of optimization in the nervous system, see this paper in which I discuss the work of an amazing and brilliant professor at the University of Maryland.)

Taking the Theism out of Christianity

I recently came across an excellent debate between Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath (an Oxford theologian). While watching the (almost risibly cordial) exchange, it occurred to me—not for the first time—that atheists ought to make more of an effort in such disputations to distinguish between (i) theism (the belief in God or many gods), and (ii) theism’s particular manifestations (Christianity, Hinduism, etc.). The reason is this:

If one takes the ontological question of God’s existence as an empirical matter, then neither the theist nor atheist can prove, with absolute certitude, that God either does or does not exist; rather, the answer must be probabilistic. Ultimately, as Dawkins puts it, the universe is exactly as one would expect it to be if there was no God. Thus, while atheists cannot flat-out "falsify" the theistic hypothesis (there's nothing in the universe, no datum or set of data, one can point at to prove that God doesn't exist, only things to suggest he doesn't), there is nevertheless a very strong argument against it.

But there is a far stronger argument against theism's particular religious manifestations, such as Christianity. Indeed, add to the initial implausibility attending theism a massive boat load of additional implausibilities that the Christian religion introduces. Not only do Christians claim that God exists, but they also believe that:

- God is three-in-one (the insoluble modalism vs. tritheism debate)
- Jesus was both fully human and fully divine (see post below, “Could Jesus have been an atheist?”)
- Jesus will return “someday soon” to rapture up the believers (apocalypticism in the Bible)
- Etc.

These are even more problematic than theism, and I think it would help atheists to be more explicit about them. Dawkins, for example, frequently attacks (in the video) McGrath’s Christian faith through general statements about, e.g., the lack of evidence for a God (where these arguments are applicable without modification to other religions as well), rather than through Christianity-specific critiques, such as those put forth by, e.g., Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus. The point, of course, is to compound the theological difficulties of Christianity by saying: “Not only is the belief in God—any God—an uncogent position, but the specific claims made by your religion, Christianity, are highly implausible and untenable.”

I am still waiting for a book that ascends from the level of Christian specifics—the myriad problems (internal coherence, historical accuracy, etc.) of lower/higher textual criticism—all the way to the higher level of theological generalities—the ontological problem of God’s existence, theodicy, and so on.

What is the Number of the Beast? Is it 666?
According to the earliest copy of Revelations available,
P115, the number is not 666, but 616. Oops.

Song #3

This song, entitled "The Divided Line," has two parts: (i) The first is slow, and includes clips of Jacques Derrida speaking; and (ii) the second is fast, and includes clips of Jacques Derrida singing. Actually, what happened was this: I found an interview containing a long caesura, at the end of which Derrida says "uuuuuuh," and then continues. It just so happened that the tone of Derrida's "uh" fit the song's key, and so I cut and pasted the Derridian grunt into the song! Enjoy.