Faith, Beer, and Other Things That Interest Geoff

• Hennepin is now on-draft. Plus, I won a Hennepin canoe from Brewery Ommegang. I got 2nd place in the contest promoting Hennepin on-draft. The canoe was hit by a falling tree, but that's another story.


• Rodenbach is back! Rodenbach Flemish Sour beers are back in America. And they are reasonably priced too.


• Victory's Braumeister Harvest Pils and Deschutes' Hop Trip Harvest Ale. Both used fresh hops, which impart amazing hop flavor without bitterness. I love hop bitterness, but the other hop flavors are great as well.


• Weyerbacher's Prophecy. Weyerbacher continued their bourbon-aging series with impressive results.


• Russian River's wild ales (Supplication, Temptation, etc., etc.) became well-known and reached the Philly area. They are works of art.


• Heavyweight's One Time One Place series. First they did saisons, which was cool. Then they did milds. This country does need more milds. I had a couple on-cask and they were tasty.


• Sam Adam's made an imperial pilsener. A German hop bomb.


• Panil Barriquee. Best Flemish Sour Red I've ever had. And it's made in Italy. Cool.


• Last but certainly not least, Fuller's Special Edition ESB. Freaking amazing. My favorite all-time beer. Please, please, please. Fuller's, if you are listening, please make more of this.

"An Advocate for the Right." — Headline over a New York Times "news analysis" of Judge John Roberts’ judicial philosophy, July 28.

vs.

"Balanced Jurist at Home in the Middle."
— Headline over a June 27, 1993 New York Times story on Supreme Court nominee Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

At issue is what constitutes science itself, with the court deciding that:

...[R]igorous attachment to "natural" explanations is an essential attribute to science by definition and by convention. We are in agreement with Plaintiffs’ lead expert Dr. Miller, that from a practical perspective, attributing unsolved problems about nature to causes and forces that lie outside the natural world is a "science stopper."

Of course, what the ruling doesn't mention (nor do atheistic scientists often mention) is that this "rigorous attachment to natural explanations"--otherwise known as methodological naturalism--is itself a presupposition based on a particular kind of faith, and is neither empirical nor testable. Thus, as an arbitrary rule placed on science, it actually violates itself, though we are all expected to pay it unquestioning fealty or else be labeled flat-earthers (or worse).

Incidentally, this view of science would have been completely alien to all scientists before the 20th century, most of whom believed the science was only possible because a creator God had made an orderly world. Absolute naturalism is not the sine qua non of science, but is rather an untestable philosophy smuggled relatively recently into science by those with a particular metaphysical agenda.

In reality, a reasonable mind can see the silliness of this without the benefit of years of training designed to drum out common sense. Say you put a deck of cards on the coffee table and walk out of the room. Later you return to the room and the cards are scattered haphazardly all over the floor. What do you conclude? The anti-ID zealots would caracature ID by claming ID-ists would look at a scenario and say "Well, angels must have done it." This kind of portrait earns big points with their fellow atheists who find it quite clever (and with more than a few dim judges, too), but it utterly fails to address what ID actually says. Just as anyone else, the ID theorist would conclude that something knocked the cards off the table (not necessarily intelligent; it could have been the cat) and then gravity caused the cards to fall and land randomly.

Now let's suppose an alternate scenario. You put the cards on the coffee table, walk out of the room, and when you return, they are lying on the floor in a pattern that spells out "We fell down." In order to remain "scientific," would you apply your "methodological naturalism" and conclude that no intelligent force had acted on the cards? Or, without having to give it more than a nanosecond of thought, would you conclude that your spouse (or someone else with intelligence) was having some fun with you?

We know the answer intuitively, and the fact is that "science" makes these kinds of obvious conclusions every day. Perhaps the most popular science there is (if television ratings are any indication)--forensic science--deals with only discerning intelligent design in the natural realm. It's an entire science based on the clear fact that if two metal bullet-shaped objects with a spiral pattern are found in someone's head, they are not natural deposits produced by the brain, nor are they things that the wind put there.

What ID is trying to explain, and what naturalistic science is utterly at a loss to explain, is that the scattered deck of cards from the analogy is most emphatically not what we find in nature. What we find is the cards arranged into a message--only it's a message far more complex than "we fell down."

The atheist has gotten around this by jiggering the definition of science so that anything "scientific" (by which he means, and means us to mean, "true") has to have a natural, purposeless, undirected cause as an explanation. So when he finds the message spelled out by the cards, he concludes with absolute certainty--scientifically--that they got that way on accident. As the eminent atheistic Darwinist Richard Dawkins once wrote, "Biology is the study of complicated things which give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." They appear to have been designed, but ultimately they cannot have, because we've already decided that any recourse to an intelligent cause cannot be true because it violates our definition of science. Any other explanation wouldn't be scientific, you see.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life,[a] and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own,[b] and his own people[c] did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

10) It mischaracterizes ID as a supernatural explanation even though it isn't and even though both pro-ID expert scientists testified it wasn't (Day 11 PM, pg. 95; Day 20 PM pg. 45, 135). In short, it lets the critics define ID rather than the proponents.

9) It overreaches the judicial arm by ruling that the nature of science is characterized by methodological naturalism and that intelligent design is not science (pg. 65).**

8) It overreaches the judicial arm by ruling that evolution is compatible with religion (pg. 136).**

7) It overreaches the judicial arm by ruling that evolution is a solid theory (pg. 41) and that irreducible complexity has been refuted (pg. 64).**

6) It sadly threatens the teaching of evolution by making religious motivations of public proponents a relevant factor in deciding whether or not a theory can be taught.

5) It wrongly approves of the “it’s wrong to single out evolution” argument which was validated in Selman. (pg. 39-40) and wrongly claims “evolution is theory ... not fact” language is unconstitutional based upon Selman (which may be overruled on that point anyway).

4) It sadly threatens the teaching of evolution by using the endorsement test to determine if a scientific theory of biological origins would endorse (or presumably "dis-endorse") the teaching of a controversial idea in the eyes of the average citizen.

3) It asserts the factually false claim that ID proponents haven’t published peer reviewed papers (pg. 64).

2) It completely ignores ALL of the statements in Pandas making it clear that ID is NOT a supernatural explanation--the Judge doesn't even mention with these statements, much less explain why the Court disagrees with them.

1) Incredibly, this trial court decision describes itself as the final answer for all courts, behaving and talking like it was handed down from the Supreme Court, as precedent for all. (pg. 63-64).


** Even if these points are true, which some people may believe they are, courts have no business ruling on such matters. These are not issues for courts to rule on.

Second was the discovery that the value of the cosmological constant - the energy of empty space which contributes to the expansion rate of the universe - seems absurdly improbable, and nothing in fundamental physics is able to explain why. I remember when Steven Weinberg first suggested that the cosmological constant might be anthropically determined - that it has to be this way otherwise we would not be here to observe it. I was very impressed with the argument, but troubled by it. Like everybody else, I thought the cosmological constant was probably zero - meaning that all the quantum fluctuations that make up the vacuum energy cancel out, and gravity alone affects the expansion of the universe. It would be much easier to explain if they cancelled out to zero, rather than to nearly zero. The discovery that there is a non-zero cosmological constant changed everything. Still, those two things were not enough to tip the balance for me.

The Democratic Party have contrived to get themselves into a situation where bad news from Iraq is good for them and good news from Iraq is bad for them.

One story after another focused on their contract squabbles, what head coach Andy Reid needed to do to keep things together, how an ailing defensive unit would have to find a way to anchor this team just to keep it competitive.

Very little in the way of venom was directed toward the play of McNabb.

Let's just be real about it.

The Eagles' coddling of McNabb was contagious, with every one of us at some time making excuses for his lack of production instead of focusing on him purely as a football player.

One year, it was his lack of offensive weapons. Then it was Reid's methodical, transparent strategies in pivotal situations. In the Super Bowl, it was Reid again, coupled with claims that McNabb was sick, fatigued or both. And now, after this farce of a season, McNabb's sports hernia is blamed for Philadelphia's demise.

That's not to say any of those claims were false. Nor is it to imply that McNabb is at fault.

McNabb didn't ask for anyone's preferential treatment, sensitivity or sympathy. Yet, on far more occasions than most - especially since Limbaugh's comments in October 2003 - one could argue McNabb got it anyway.

The question is simple: Why?

The belief here is that in a quest to dismiss Limbaugh's claim that the media are "desirous that a black quarterback do well," the rather unhealthy practice of exploring all other options of fault outside of McNabb has been exercised, with McNabb being the person who's suffered most because of it.

There's never been a question of me losing the locker room until this year. If I've lost the locker room, then the question goes up why. Is it because now people are starting to look at me sideways for what I've been doing, or what I make, or whatever [Owens] had a problem with? That's the question I'm trying to get answered: If I've lost the locker room or not? No answer has come my way.

Among the many distortions, misrepresentations, and outright falsifications that have emerged from the debate over Iraq, one in particular stands out above all others. This is the charge that George W. Bush misled us into an immoral and/or unnecessary war in Iraq by telling a series of lies that have now been definitively exposed.

What makes this charge so special is the amazing success it has enjoyed in getting itself established as a self-evident truth even though it has been refuted and discredited over and over again by evidence and argument alike. In this it resembles nothing so much as those animated cartoon characters who, after being flattened, blown up, or pushed over a cliff, always spring back to life with their bodies perfectly intact. Perhaps, like those cartoon characters, this allegation simply cannot be killed off, no matter what.

Nevertheless, I want to take one more shot at exposing it for the lie that it itself really is. Although doing so will require going over ground that I and many others have covered before, I hope that revisiting this well-trodden terrain may also serve to refresh memories that have grown dim, to clarify thoughts that have grown confused, and to revive outrage that has grown commensurately dulled.

As investigators and residents have picked through the battered New Orleans levee system's breaches, churned-up soil and bent sheet pile in the 100 days since Hurricane Katrina struck, they have uncovered mounting evidence that human error played a major role in the flood that devastated the city.

Floodwall breaches linked to design flaws inundated parts of the city that otherwise would have stayed dry, turning neighborhoods into death traps and causing massive damage. In other areas, poorly engineered gaps and erosion of weak construction materials accelerated and deepened flooding already under way, hampering rescue efforts in the wake of the storm.

These problems turned an already deadly disaster into a wider man-made catastrophe and have made rebuilding and resettlement into far tougher and more expensive challenges.

That's the picture that emerges from investigations of the levee system by teams sponsored by the state government, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Science Foundation, as well as from dozens of interviews with local residents, officials and engineers.

Experts say the New Orleans flood of 2005 should join the space shuttle explosions and the sinking of the Titanic on history's list of ill-fated disasters attributable to human mistakes.

Both incidents open up huge anthropological and sociobiological questions. Most animals don't care whether anyone watches them mating. They neither seek out nor avoid an audience. What's with the humans?

In societies from the sands of the Kalahari to the tiniest Pacific Islands, the cultural preference is for sex in private, says Christopher Kovats-Bernat, an anthropologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. Where people can afford it, "we segregate off a space in the dwelling that is devoted to two things - sleeping and sex." In many parts of the world, however, the private bedroom is an unattainable luxury.

IAEA chairman Muhammad ElBaradei on Monday confirmed Israel's assessment that Iran is only a few months away from creating an atomic bomb.

If Teheran indeed resumed its uranium enrichment in other plants, as threatened, it will take it only "a few months" to produce a nuclear bomb, El-Baradei told The Independent.

On the other hand, he warned, any attempt to resolve the crisis by non-diplomatic means would "open a Pandora's box. There would be efforts to isolate Iran; Iran would retaliate; and at the end of the day you have to go back to the negotiating table to find the solution."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, came out with a big statement on Iraq last week. Did you hear about it? Probably not. Everyone was still raving about his Democrat colleague, Rep. Jack Murtha, whose carefully nuanced position on Iraq is: We're all doomed unless we pull out by next Tuesday! (I quote from memory.)

Also, the United States Army is "broken," "worn out" and "living hand to mouth." If the reaction to Murtha's remarks by my military readers is anything to go by, he ought to be grateful they're still bogged down in Iraq and not in the congressional parking lot.
...
It must be awful lonely being Joe Lieberman in the Democratic Party these days. Every time he switches on the news there's John Kerry sonorously droning out his latest pretzel of a position: Insofar as I understand it, he's not calling for a firm 100 percent fixed date of withdrawal -- like, say, Feb. 4, 2 p.m.; meet at Baghdad bus station with two pieces of carry-on. Don't worry, it's not like flying coach on TWA, you'd be able to change the date without paying a surcharge. But Kerry drones that we need to "set benchmarks" for the "transfer of authority." Actually, the administration's been doing that for two years -- setting dates for the return of sovereignty, for electing a national assembly, for approving a constitution, etc, and meeting all of them. And all during those same two years Kerry and his fellow Democrats have huffed that these dates are far too premature, the Iraqis aren't in a position to take over, hold an election, whatever.

After sampling the Riesling she brought to the gathering, Powers became infatuated with wine. ''It's a lot more complex than drinking just a beer, the taste is so different, and there is so much that goes into the making of the wine, and so many different types and smells. There is just so much available out there," she says. ''I definitely enjoy wine more than beer now."

If we discount trivial examples like bacterial resistance or "change over time" or small changes in beak size among the finches of the Galapagos Islands, we don't know very much about evolution at all. We don't see it happening around us, or in the rocks.

In my book, I quote Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, telling a professional audience at the American Museum in New York that there was "not one thing" he knew about evolution. He had asked the evolutionary-morphology seminar at the University of Chicago if there was anything they knew about it, and, he said: "The only answer I got was silence."

Patterson, who died a few years ago, was an atheist and once told me that he regarded the Bible as "a pack of lies." There was no way he could be accused of Biblical primitivism. People would ask him, with a note of alarm, "Well, you do believe in evolution, don't you?" He would respond that science wasn't supposed to be a system of belief.

So let's look at the evidence adduced for evolution. The fossil record is sparse. Bats, for example — the only mammals capable of powered flight — appear suddenly in the fossil record, with their sonar systems already fully developed. "There are no half bats," as a world expert on bats once said. The experts have no idea what animal gave rise to the first bat.

The creatures that evolution purports to explain are fantastically complex. The cell, thought at the time of Darwin to be a "simple little lump of protoplasm," is as complicated as a high-tech factory. We have no actual evidence that it evolved — and yet we are asked, indeed obliged, to believe that it did.

That phrase — "it was selected for" — is regarded as a sufficient explanation for . . . everything. The same mundane phrase is given as the explanation for everything under the sun. How did the bats get sonar? "It arose by an accidental mutation of the genes and was selected for. Next question?" How did the eye develop? "Piecemeal. There was a random mutation and it conferred an advantage so it was selected for. Then the same thing happened over and over again. Next question?" How did the camel get its hump? "Random mutations conferred some advantage and so they were selected for. Next question?"

This is the science before which all knees must bend? These explanations are no better than "Just-So stories" (as one or two Harvard professors have rightly said). No actual digging in the dirt is needed: The theorist merely contemplates the trait in question and makes up a plausible story as to how it might have been advantageous.