The Cult of Reason and Rand

Yesterday I mentioned Ayn Rand's connection to the oxymoronic phrase 'Kantian Nihilism'. Rand must be particularly memic today, because Brin quotes Stacey quoting Shermer on Randism (Objectivism):

Contrary Brin: An Interesting Guest Posting...

Blake Stacey: "One quick note before I forget: on the subject of Ayn Rand, you should check out (if you haven't already) Michael Shermer's essay 'The Unlikeliest Cult', which was published in **Skeptic** magazine and reprinted as a chapter of his book **Why People Believe Weird Things**. I was able to dredge a copy out of a Google hit parade:

Here's the money quote:

'The cultic flaw in Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism is not in the use of reason, or in the emphasis on individuality, or in the belief that humans are self motivated, or in the conviction that capitalism is the ideal system. The fallacy in Objectivism is the belief that absolute knowledge and final Truths are attainable through reason, and therefore there can be absolute right and wrong knowledge, and absolute moral and immoral thought and action. For Objectivists, once a principle has been discovered through reason to be True, that is the end of the discussion.

If you disagree with the principle, then your reasoning is flawed. If your reasoning is flawed it can be corrected, but if it is not, you remain flawed and do not belong in the group. Excommunication is the final step for such unreformed heretics.'

I don't know if I'd have phrased it the way Shirmer did, though I agree in part. I don't like the implication that "Truth" cannot be obtained by reason. Yes, Goedel proved that any self-consistent non-trivial system of expression has true statements that cannot be proven, but the phrasing suggests another path to "Truth". We don't know of any.

I would say that Rand's flaw is more that values can be intellectually derived. Most modern geeks try that in their youth and give up [1], but Rand persisted [2]. Human values are a byproduct of natural selection, early environment, and memetic flux. They are emergent, not deduced -- though there is a trend over time and wealth towards values of compassion and tolerance. Rand started with 'freedom' and tried to deduce all else, other's start with 'duty' (she hated that). Both are arbitrary starting points. Most of us ride both horses. Her problem wasn't that she chose a horse to ride, it's that she thought her choice was rational. It wasn't and it can't be.

That's why she's the queen of the Cult of Reason.

PS. Ever notice Rand's stories don't have disabled persons or children in them?

[1] I tried to derive a system that wasn't human centric. Not a pretty result.
[2] Oddly enough, I just remembered I once won some sort of prize for an essay on the emergent nature of human ethics. Forgot about that. It was a long time ago ...

Update 7/23/06: Crooked Timber gives us some more background on why Kant was accused of Nihilism. This was the money line for me:

[Andrew Bowie] ... Kant, who himself avowedly believed in God, was regarded as a threat in his own time because he rejected the idea that philosophy can have access to the (theologically) inbuilt structure of reality. However this aspect of Kant’s thought is understood, it evidently puts into question the idea that the ultimate truth of the world is accessible and therefore constitutes the knowable goal of philosophy or natural science.

So now we understand why the Queen of the Cult of Reason (Rand) would coin the phrase 'Kantian Nihilism'. Kant was an (old) threat to the magical belief of Rand and others that Truth (moral virtue) could be deduced by Reason from First Causes. Doesn't work guys. We've been at it for thousands of years. Ethics is a post-hoc justification for the things humans want to do, and the wants (like everything else about humans) are the result of natural selection, happenstance, and social environment ...

Do plaque causing bacteria secrete a local anesthetic?

If you were a bacteria munching on oral stuff, wouldn't you secrete a local anesthetic? After all, mosquitoes are far less evolved than bacteria, and they've mastered that trick.

I couldn't find anything written about it. Seems like a fun, albeit risky (might turn up nothing), research topic for a dentist somewhere.

Kantian Nihilism and Caligulan Propriety

People who get their intellectual history from blogs like this sometimes use the phrase "Kantian Nihilism" as a shorthand for leftie commie pinko traitor sex drugs and rock and roll ideology. Ayn Rand liked it (apparently she was even dimmer than I'd thought).

The term triggers a full scale rant from Obsidian Wing's Hilzoy -- with this memorable sentence ...

Obsidian Wings: My Head, She Explodes!

... Since truth is one but error is infinite, there's no shortage of further subjects for Chris Muir's strips: Leninist anarchism, Kierkegaardian rationalism, Thomist atheism, Nazi Judaism, cautious and sober Maoism, Britney Spearsian profundity, Caligulan propriety and decency, Robespierrian restraint, Mozartian lugubriousness, and of course Muirian thoughtful, well-informed commentary.

Update 7/23: There's more later ...

Kauzlarich campaigns for assertive atheism

I'm of the older, quieter, traditional brand of agnostic/atheistic secular humanist pinko commie geek intellectual.

I have a great deal of sympathy and affection for religious belief and religious people -- despite some knowledge of the dark (very dark) aspects of religious history. I've read and studied more about religion(s) than most believers. People like me find the assertive atheism of the young-uns harsh and unkind.

On the other hand, people like Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich make a more aggressive stance understandable ...

Pharyngula: IOKIYAC

... Kauzlarich, now a battalion commanding officer at Fort Riley in Kansas, further suggested the Tillman family's unhappiness with the findings of past investigations might be because of the absence of a Christian faith in their lives.

In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: 'When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough.'...

Why can't scientists come to agreement about global warming?

So asks Peggy Noonan.

The words 'moron' and 'idiot' are tainted by their original use to describe persons with cognitive disability. We need an entirely new term to describe people with fully functional nervous systems whose deep personality flaws cause them to think like a pithed frog.

I suggest Noonatic.

Cringely 1997 - WinTrust, IE and the death of Netscape

In a recent column Cringely mentioned that his archives go back to 1997. Net eons ago. And so they do. Here he writes about something called WinTrust, which sounds like Google Checkout. (Anyone remember Microsoft Wallet? No, I didn't think so.) He also claims that the future of the net is in Cybercash (no, didn't happen), online transactions (duh) and advertising (oh, yes).

I, Cringely . November 17, 1997 - Take a billionaire to lunch | PBS

... And then there's WinTrust: Microsoft is laying the groundwork so that all electronic transactions will go through Redmond. This may be the real reason Microsoft is pushing IE4 onto the OEMs so hard.

Cybercash, online transactions, Internet advertising. The browser is simply the front door to these innovative services/profit centers. The only way to make sure everyone will see those centers is to make sure everyone uses Microsoft's browser. Netscape has no interest in enabling WinTrust, so Netscape must die. Microsoft will gladly give away the browser for free regardless of the presence of Netscape just to be sure they can control the online gateway. From a business standpoint, this is sheer brilliance. But to some folks it's Big Brother coming from Washington state instead of DC.

Cringely was claiming Microsoft's original agenda was not a defensive move against Netscape, but rather an offensive move to direct all transactions through Microsoft. In retrospect, I don't think they were so clever.

Israel and Lebanon: why I can't condemn Bush (for once)

I've never been in a war. I would prefer not to be. Those who've read me will not mistake me for a Bushie, a neo-con, or a chicken-hawk.

But.

Hezbollah is a terrorist organization embedded in Lebanon deep among the civillian population. They claimed to have 10,000 missiles and they were lobbing them into Israel. How wrong is Israel to invade Lebanon? Certainly they seem to have as strong a claim as the US had to invade Afghanistan (heck, Jimmy Carter supported that!), and a far stronger claim than the US had to invade Iraq.

Early Warning by William M. Arkin - washingtonpost.com

... When the U.N. high commissioner for human rights and former war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour raises war crimes and argues that there is 'indiscriminate shelling of cities,' I guess she is referring to Hezbollah's indiscriminate attacks upon Israel. I might not like what Israel is doing, and my personal tendency might be anti-war, but I just don't see war crimes or indiscriminate anything in Israel's conduct.

I remember when Isreal was internationally attacked for going into Gaza City in pursuit of embedded terrorists. They were intensely criticized, and I joined in as well. I read the follow-up, however. In retrospect Israel's conduct during that assault was at least as "cautious" as the US seems capable of executing, and maybe even a cut above what we can do - even when we're trying.

I believe Bush will move with deliberate slowness, barely cooperating with international diplomatic efforts, aiming to give Israel a window in which to attack Hezbollah. This is one of the rare times I'm not absolutely certain Bush is being incompetent or wrong.

PS. Even more oddly, I sort-of-barely-sympathize with Bush's stem cell research veto. I think the nation is very much in denial about the "slippery slopes" in biotech and we do need more public engagement than we've had.

Tom sees Tomorrow: a political cartoon

Tom Tomorrow draws cartoons from the left. Today he juxtaposes a 2003 cartoon with a 2006 news story. It really is worth following the links; only a minute required.

For the tiny fraction that reads it, the seemingly ephemeral blogosphere is a kind of emergent memory. Ironically it has much longer recall than traditional media.

The astounding speed of human genetic transformation: The Germanization of Britain

Really dumb title. Fascinating research with immense implications:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Britain 'had apartheid society'

... There are a very high number of Germanic male-line ancestors in England's current population. Genetic research has revealed the country's gene pool contains between 50 and 100% Germanic Y-chromosomes...

... Estimates range between 10,000 and 200,000 [germanic] Anglo-Saxons migrating into England between 5th and 7th Century AD, compared with a native population of about two million.

To understand what might have happened all of those years ago, UK scientists used computer simulations to model the gene pool changes that would have occurred with the arrival of such small numbers of migrants.

The team used historical evidence that suggested native Britons were at a substantial economic and social disadvantage compared to the Anglo-Saxon settlers.

The researchers believe this may have led to a reproductive imbalance giving rise to an ethnic divide.

Ancient texts, such as the laws of Ine, reveal that the life of an Anglo-Saxon was valued more than that of a native's.

Dr Mark Thomas, an author on the research and an evolutionary biologist from University College London (UCL), said: "By testing a number of different combinations of ethnic intermarriage rates and the reproductive advantage of being Anglo-Saxon, we found that under a very wide range of different combinations of these factors we would get the genetic and linguistic patterns we see today.

"The native Britons were genetically and culturally absorbed by the Anglo-Saxons over a period of as little as a few hundred years," Dr Thomas added.

"An initially small invading Anglo-Saxon elite could have quickly established themselves by having more children who survived to adulthood, thanks to their military power and economic advantage.

"We believe that they also prevented the native British genes getting into the Anglo-Saxon population by restricting intermarriage in a system of apartheid that left the country culturally and genetically Germanised.

Astounding. Vastly outnumered by the indigenous peoples, the newcomer's advantages combined with selective mating meant a complete ethnic and genetic conquest in mere centuries. I would never have guessed this. I wonder if it explains what happened to the Neandertals. In that case the Cro Magnon immigrants probably didn't interbreed very much and might have had very significant technological advantages. The Neandertals might have vanished, by the standards of history, overnight.

This is one of a series of stories emphasizing that the human genome has been under extensive selection pressure in the past thousand year, far more than most biologists had once thought.

Does Alzheimer's cause diabetes?

Kudos to a cautious article in the NYT which is careful to write that a study "links" Diabetes and Alzheimer's, without saying it's a diabetes -> Alzheimer's relationship -- even though the study director thinks it is. Note this quote:

Studies Link Diabetes to Risk of Alzheimer’s - New York Times

... More recently, though, scientists have begun to think that the diseases are connected in other ways as well. In both, destructive deposits of amyloid, a type of protein, build up: in the brain in Alzheimer’s, in the pancreas in Type 2 diabetes...

Which leaves open the possibility that a defect related to amyloid accumulation underlies some cases of both beta cell failure and neuronal failure. At one point islet cells where thought to derive from neural crest tissue, but that appears to have been disproven. Alas, the origin of stem cells is rather a popular topic and hard to approach in a quick google search ... Certainly a connection to the cells afflicted by Alzheimer's would support a shared etiology ...

Godchecker: why I love the web

It's stuff like this that renews my faith in the power of the web (credit - Pharyngula):

Godchecker.com - Your Guide To The Gods. Mythology with a twist

Welcome to Godchecker - your Guide to the Gods

We have more Gods than you can shake a stick at. Godchecker's Mythology Encyclopedia currently features over 2,850 deities.

Browse the pantheons of the world, explore ancient myths, and discover Gods of everything from Fertility to Fluff with the fully searchable Holy Database Of All Known Gods.

It's a treasure trove for fantasy, comic book and other writers. Consider Itzamna.

Yes, it's irreverent (thousands of deities will do that to a person), but it's a brilliant idea and it's a window on one of the central preoccupations of the past 10,000 years of human existence. A vast amount of creativity over thousands of years, combined with the invisible hand of memetic selection, and the peculiar invention of the web, has produced this work. Raise a glass to it!

PS. What's with spiders?! They have their own flock of deities ...

The risks of photographing your children

A man takes pictures of his children on a camping trip. They're naked. His life becomes "a living hell".

Positive predictive value is a very subtle concept [1], but somehow we need to teach it far more widely. In the meanwhile, be very careful about the children's pictures.

Update 7/18/06:

[1] In this case the "test" is the judgment of the clerk at the photography store. Given that the prior probability of pornography in family photographs publicly developed is probably much less than 1%, even if the clerks have spectacularly good judgment the vast majority of "positive" results will in fact be false positives. In the world of medicine, this test would not be FDA approved.

Brad DeLong and the crisis of modern journalism

The president propagandizes (lies) about tax cuts paying for themselves. Journalists, with the honorable exceptions of the Wall Street Journal and The Economist, respond with he said/she said stories. DeLong blows a gasket.

I must be in the Zeitgeist. This is a more topical variant on the topic I raised earlier today -- why are journalists (and politicians) so disconnected from knowledge?

Here's my theory on the he said/she said practice that's destroyed modern jounalism, and, claims DeLong, threatens our society.

Newspapers are weak nowadays. Their business models (advertising) are under threat. Rove has perfected techniques to punish the disobedient. Journalists fear for their jobs and livelihood. The he said/she said routine allows one to tell half the truth -- without offending the powerful. Why should a journalist point out the president is lying, and lose their job, when nobody seems to care?

Oh wait, I've pointed the finger at the American people again. Funny how that works in a democracy. In this case, though, there is a mitigating factor. The economic collapse of newspapers is driven by technological transformation, not the result of societal disinterest alone. If our society endures we'll find a replacement for newspapers, but in the meantime their failing business model is hurting all of us ...

The 9th century civil war in Baghdad

The Abassid Caliphs (762 - 935 ACE) was an average In Our Time programme -- meaning it's quite excellent [1]. I was enjoying a 2nd listening on my morning commute when I realized I'd missed a major connection on the first go-round. They were discussing the civil war that destroyed much of 9th century (812-813 ACE) Baghdad, a war between the "western" Arabs and the "eastern" Persian forces fought in part over the requirements for becoming Caliph. One side insisted that only descendants of the Prophet were eligible, the other wanted power to be open to any devout and well educated Muslim.

Obviously twelve hundred years is not that long in the Middle East, but we knew that.

I suspect this connection is so obvious to most educated Iraqis that it probably goes unremarked. Certainly any scholar of the period would have thought of it when Bush first threatened invasion.

What I find curious is that I hadn't read this before. I don't read everything, but I do read quite a bit... Why is there such a gap between those who write for newspapers and the rest of the world? How can we better connect journalists to knowledge? [2]

[1] See my note on how to get these archival shows on your iPod.

[2] Of course even I don't dare wonder about connecting politicians to knowledge ... Imagine a world in which the President had to compete a training program before ascending to power ... in which senators went to class ... in which 'In Our Time' was the core of a required program of study ... A silly thought. On the other hand, isn't that what the US military does? Don't we require board exams and continuing education of physicians? In an increasingly complex world, why don't we require examination and certification of politicians? Maybe a 'no senator left behind program ... With public review of the results of course ... Heh, heh, heh...

Marine Philip Carter on the disaster of reducing the standards for soldiers

[As noted in the comments, I'd remembered Phillip's history incorrectly. He also spells his first name with two Ls! Arrgghh. I'd correct the title but since Blogger uses the title as the link (terrible practice) that would break any links. Apologies to Mr. Carter.]

Phillip Carter was a former marine soldier and a newly minted lawyer, scholar and journalist when he again became a marine soldier to serve in Iraq.

Phillip is extreme. I'm sure the Bushies are capable of ignoring him, but he must make them feel a wee bit queasy.

Today he tells us the lesson taught by the Steven Green rape/murder charges. Mr. Green is accused of raping a 14 yo Iraqi girl and murdering her and her family to cover up his crime. If this is true then he is a troubled and bad man who will likely be executed.

That's not the lesson. The lesson is that Mr. Green should never have been a soldier. He did not meet the military standards in place prior to the conquest of Iraq. He was recruited because the army was desperate -- they couldn't fill their quotas. They lowered the barrier and Mr. Green became a warrior.

Mr. Carter has written quite a bit on this topic on his blog and in print. Read the story and follow the links at the end.

Do not believe those who claim our military is in fine shape. We don't have the force structure to fight the war(s) we're now in. Mr. Carter has some suggestions ...