Read 'Em & Weep

How on earth can anyone look at the lives of John Kerry and George W. Bush and claim that they have confidence in W? If this is (fair & balanced) incredulity, so be it.

[x Mother Jones Magazine]

Brothers in Arms?

George W. Bush and John Kerry both spent their mid twenties in uniform. The similarities end there.

February 8, 2004

John Kerry February 18, 1966: A senior at Yale, Kerry commits to enlist in the Navy. December, 1967: Kerry is assigned as an Ensign to the guided-missile frigate USS Gridley. After five-months aboard, he returns to San Diego to undergo training to command a Swift boat, used by the Navy for patrols in Vietnam. June, 1968: Kerry is promoted to Lieutenant. November 17, 1968: Kerry arrives in Vietnam, where he is given command of Swift boat No. 44, operating in the Mekong Delta. December 2, 1968: Kerry gets his first taste of intense combat, and is wounded in the arm. He is awarded a Purple Heart. January, 1969: Kerry takes command of a new Swift boat, completing 18 missions over 48 days, almost all in the Mekong Delta area. February 20, 1969: Kerry is wounded again, taking shrapnel in the left thigh, after a gunboat battle. He is awarded a second Purple Heart. February 28, 1969: Kerry and his boat crew, coming under attack while patroling in the Mekong Delta, decide to counterattack. In the middle of the ensuing firefight, Kerry leaves his boat, pursues a Viet Cong fighter into a small hut, kills him, and retreives a rocket launcher. He is awarded a Silver Star. March 13, 1969: A mine detonates near Kerry's boat, wounding him in the right arm. He is awarded a third Purple Heart. He is also awarded a Bronze Star for pulling a crew member, who had fallen overboard, back on the boat amidst a firefight. April, 1969: According to Navy rules, sailors that have been wounded three times in combat are eligible to be transfered to the U.S. for noncombat duty. Kerry is transferred to desk duty in Brooklyn, NY. January 3, 1970: Kerry requests that he be discharged early from the Navy so that he can run for Congress in Massachusetts' Third District. The request is granted, and Kerry begins his first political campaign. February 1970: Kerry drops his bid for the Democratic nomination and supports Robert F. Drinan. Drinan, a staunch opponent of the war, wins the race and goes on to serve in Congress for ten years. June 1970: Kerry joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and becomes one of the group's unofficial spokespeople. April 23, 1971: Kerry helps to organize a huge anti-war protest outside Congress, earning a place on president Richard Nixon's "enemies' list." He joins a group of Vietnam veterans who throw medals and campaign ribbons over a fence in front of the Capitol. April 23, 1971: Kerry testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He tells lawmakers: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" November 10, 1971: Kerry quits Vietnam Veterans Against the War. April 1972: Kerry moves to Massachusetts' 5th District to run for Congress again. He wins the Democratic nomination but loses to Republican Paul Cronin, in part because of his anti-war views. November 1972: After losing the election, Kerry is hired as a regional coordinator for Cooperative for American Relief to Everywhere(CARE). September, 1973: Kerry enrolls at Boston College Law School.

George W. Bush February, 1968: A senior at Yale, Bush takes an Air Force officers test. He scores in 25th percentile in the pilot aptitude portion, and declares that he does not wish to serve overseas. May 27, 1968: Bush enlists in Texas Air National Guard. Aided by Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, he jumps over waiting list. He pledges two years of active duty and four years of reserve duty. June 9, 1968: Bush's student deferment expires. September 1968: After basic training, Bush pulls inactive duty to act as gopher on Florida Senator Edward J. Gurney's campaign. November 1968: After Gurney wins, Bush is reactivated and transferred to Georgia. November 1969: Bush is flown to the White House by President Nixon for a date with daughter Tricia. December 1969: Bush transfers to Houston and moves into Chateaux Dijon complex. Laura lives there too, but they don't meet till later. March 1970: Bush gets his wings. June 1970: Bush joins the Guard's "Champagne Unit," where he flies with sons of Texas' elite. November 3, 1970: George Bush Sr. loses Senate election to Lloyd Bentsen, whose son is also in the "Champagne Unit." November 7, 1970: Bush is promoted to first lieutenant. Rejected by University of Texas School of Law. January 1971: The Texas Air National Guard begins testing for drugs during physicals. Spring 1971: Bush is hired by a Texas agricultural importer. He uses a National Guard F-102 to shuttle tropical plants from Florida. May 26, 1972: Bush transfers to Alabama Guard unit so he can work on Senator William Blount's reelection campaign. According to his commanding officer, Bush never shows up for duty while in Alabama. August 1972: Bush is grounded for missing a mandatory physical. November 1972: Bush returns to Houston, but never reports for Guard duty. December 1972: In D.C. for the holidays, Bush takes 16-year-old brother Marvin drinking and driving. Confronted by father, Bush suggests they settle it mano a mano. October 1, 1973: The Air National Guard relieves Bush from commitment eight months early, allowing him to attend Harvard Business School.

© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress

Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pulled Me Back In Again!

Tony Soprano's henchman, Silvio (portrayed by Steven Van Zandt), always gets laughs from the Soprano crew when he does an impression of Al Pacino's mea culpa to his non-Italian wife in "The Godfather III." Pacino's character—Michael Corleone—claims that the hold of family is more powerful than his conscience. Soul overcomes Mind. The old bloody ground is with us still. The Religious Right would repudiate Darwinism. Can the stake in every town square be far behind? Start gathering the firewood. If this is (fair & balanced) apostasy, so be it.

[x Chronicle of Higher Education]
Biology Journal Says It Mistakenly Published Paper That Attacks Darwinian Evolution
By RICHARD MONASTERSKY

A small scientific society has publicly distanced itself from a paper, published last month by its journal, that challenges Darwinian evolution. The Biological Society of Washington issued a statement on Wednesday saying that the paper, which supports so-called intelligent-design theory, should not have appeared in the journal.

The controversial article is by Stephen C. Meyer, who directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, in Seattle, and is a professor at Palm Beach Atlantic University, which describes itself as a Christian institution. The paper appeared in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.

According to the society's governing council, the paper "was published without the prior knowledge of the council, which includes officers, elected councilors, and past presidents, or associate editors."

"We have met," the statement said, "and determined that all of us would have deemed this paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." The statement said nothing about retracting the article.

The paper was accepted for publication by the journal's previous editor, Richard Sternberg, a fellow at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, part of the National Institutes of Health. Mr. Sternberg is also a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, which promotes the idea that nature has a purpose. He did not respond to repeated telephone calls from The Chronicle.

The Proceedings, a quarterly journal, normally publishes papers describing species of plants and animals. The other papers in the current issue describe four new species of crustaceans and three new species of sponges.

Mr. Meyer's paper -- on the much broader issue of the origin of animal phyla -- represents a significant departure, said the society's president, Roy W. McDiarmid, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. He received several complaints from society members, prompting the council to issue its statement.

The paper had been reviewed by three scientists and had been recommended for publication pending revisions, said Mr. McDiarmid. He did not learn about the paper until after its publication. "My conclusion on this," he said, "was that it was a really bad judgment call on the editor's part."

Mr. Meyer's paper contends that current evolutionary theory cannot explain how new animal forms developed in the distant past. It goes on to advocate the theory of intelligent design, which holds that biological systems are so complex that they could have arisen only through the action of an intelligent force and not through purely random evolutionary processes.

Critics of intelligent design have described it as a more sophisticated version of creationism -- one that doesn't necessarily stick to biblical explanations of nature but still invokes an unspecified creator.

The Discovery Institute supports many leaders in the intelligent-design movement and has been working to promote the teaching of the theory in secondary schools and colleges.

According to Mr. Meyer, this is the first time that proponents of intelligent design have published an argument for the theory in a peer-reviewed scientific publication. He said he had chosen the journal because Mr. Sternberg attended a conference where Mr. Meyer gave an oral presentation advancing the same arguments. The two discussed the possibility of publishing the work, he said.

But opponents of intelligent design and creationism say that Mr. Meyer should have submitted his paper to one of the several journals that normally deal with the origin of animal forms.

"People who would be appropriate to review the paper would be evolutionary biologists, and I doubt that any evolutionary biologists reviewed the paper," said Eugenie C. Scott, executive director of the National Center for Scientific Information.

Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Next Big Thing

The Roman Catholic Church once approved of burning heretics at the stake. Why? Under the influence of Aristotle, the Roman church held that fire absolutely destroyed matter. Therefore the apostate soul could not tiptoe away from the heretical corpse and somehow escape damnation. While the Religious Right does not uphold the absolute destructive power of fire, the Religious Right does hold that a single cell contains a soul. In the debate over the beginning of life, Paul Bloom has found the new bloody ground for the ongoing struggle between faith and reason. If this is (fair & balanced) unorthodoxy, so be it.

[x The New York Times]
The Duel Between Body and Soul
By PAUL BLOOM

New Haven — What people think about many of the big issues that will be discussed in the next two months — like gay marriage, stem-cell research and the role of religion in public life — is intimately related to their views on human nature. And while there may be differences between Republicans and Democrats, one fundamental assumption is accepted by almost everyone. This would be reassuring - if science didn't tell us that this assumption is mistaken.

People see bodies and souls as separate; we are common-sense dualists. The President's Council on Bioethics expressed this belief system with considerable eloquence in its December 2003 report "Being Human'': "We have both corporeal and noncorporeal aspects. We are embodied spirits and inspirited bodies (or, if you will, embodied minds and minded bodies)."

Our dualism makes it possible for us to appreciate stories where people are liberated from their bodies. In the movie "13 Going on 30,'' a teenager wakes up as Jennifer Garner, just as a 12-year-old was once transformed into Tom Hanks in "Big.'' Characters can trade bodies, as in "Freaky Friday,'' or battle for control of a single body, as when Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin fight it out in "All of Me.''

Body-hopping is not a Hollywood invention. Franz Kafka tells of a man who wakes up one morning as a gigantic insect. Homer, writing hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, describes how the companions of Odysseus were transformed into pigs - but their minds were unchanged, and so they wept. Children easily understand stories in which the frog becomes a prince or a villain takes control of a superhero's body.

In fact, most people think that a far more radical transformation actually takes place; they believe that the soul can survive the complete destruction of the body. The soul's eventual fate varies; most Americans believe it ascends to heaven or descends into hell, while people from other cultures believe that it enters a parallel spirit world, or occupies some other body, human or animal.

Our dualist perspective also frames how we think about the issues that are most central to our lives. It is no accident that a bioethics committee is talking about spirits. When people wonder about the moral status of animals or fetuses or stem cells, for instance, they often ask: Does it have a soul? If the answer is yes, then it is a precious individual, deserving of compassion and care.

In the case of abortion, our common-sense dualism can support either side of the issue. We use phrases like "my body" and "my brain," describing our bodies and body parts as if they were possessions. Some people insist that all of us — including pregnant women — own our bodies, and therefore can use them as we wish. To others, the organism residing inside a pregnant body has a soul of its own, possibly from the moment of conception, and would thereby have its own rights.

Admittedly, not everyone explicitly endorses dualism; some people wouldn't be caught dead talking about souls or spirits. But common-sense dualism still frames how we think about such issues. That's why people often appeal to science to answer the question "When does life begin?" in the hopes that an objective answer will settle the abortion debate once and for all. But the question is not really about life in any biological sense. It is instead asking about the magical moment at which a cluster of cells becomes more than a mere physical thing. It is a question about the soul.

And it is not a question that scientists could ever answer. The qualities of mental life that we associate with souls are purely corporeal; they emerge from biochemical processes in the brain. This is starkly demonstrated in cases in which damage to the brain wipes out capacities as central to our humanity as memory, self-control and decision-making.

One implication of this scientific view of mental life is that it takes the important moral questions away from the scientists. As the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker points out, the qualities that we are most interested in from a moral standpoint - consciousness and the capacity to experience pain - result from brain processes that emerge gradually in both development and evolution. There is no moment at which a soulless body becomes an ensouled one, and so scientific research cannot provide objective answers to the questions that matter the most to us.

Some scholars are confident that people will come to accept this scientific view. In the domain of bodies, after all, most of us accept that common sense is wrong. We concede that apparently solid objects are actually mostly empty space, and consist of tiny particles and fields of energy. Perhaps the same sort of reconciliation will happen in the domain of souls, and it will come to be broadly recognized that dualism, though intuitively appealing, is factually mistaken.

I am less optimistic. I once asked my 6-year-old son, Max, about the brain, and he said that it is very important and involved in a lot of thinking - but it is not the source of dreaming or feeling sad, or loving his brother. Max said that's what he does, though he admitted that his brain might help him out. Studies from developmental psychology suggest that young children do not see their brain as the source of conscious experience and will. They see it instead as a tool we use for certain mental operations. It is a cognitive prosthesis, added to the soul to increase its computing power.

This understanding might not be so different from that of many adults. People are often surprised to find out that certain parts of the brain are shown to be active — they "light up" — in a brain scanner when subjects think about religion, sex or race. This surprise reveals the tacit assumption that the brain is involved in some aspects of mental life but not others. Even experts, when describing such results, slip into dualistic language: "I think about sex and this activates such-as-so part of my brain" — as if there are two separate things going on, first the thought and then the brain activity.

It gets worse. The conclusion that our souls are flesh is profoundly troubling to many, as it clashes with the notion that the soul survives the death of the body. It is a much harder pill to swallow than evolution, then, and might be impossible to reconcile with many religious views. Pope John Paul II was clear about this, conceding our bodies may have evolved, but that theories which "consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man."

This clash is not going to be easily resolved. The great conflict between science and religion in the last century was over evolutionary biology. In this century, it will be over psychology, and the stakes are nothing less than our souls.

Paul Bloom,a professor of psychology at Yale, is the author of Descartes' Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company