Last year I wrote about the complicated relationship of conservatives and science. New events underscore this problem as of late.
Max Tegmark, writing for the Huffington Post discusses an MIT survey on religion and science.
We found that only 11 percent of Americans belong to religions openly rejecting evolution or our Big Bang … Whereas only 11 percent belong to religions openly rejecting evolution, Gallup reports that 46 percent believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago. Why is this “belief gap” so large? … This suggests that the belief gaps may have less to do with intellectual disputes and more to do with an epic failure of science education.
There is, of course, an ancillary explanation which is that people understand their chosen faiths’ theology even less than science. Afterall, we all had science class at some point but how often does our pastor or priest discuss science from the pulpit? An additional question is, if 46% of people believe in Young Earth Creationism, could they all be characterized as ‘conservative’ in their social beliefs? For me this is about the role of skepticism in conservative thought. Continue reading this post…
This is the early season for wildlife management. We are planting crops to entice wild creatures to visit the farms we hunt. We attempt to decide if deer will prefer clover or alfalfa this year. Will the doves flock to sunflowers or foxtail? We put in hours and hours of labor to create the perfect habitat for animals. Of course, our motivations are somewhat selfish. Hunters want to pursue those animals. We want to stack the deck in our favor.
No matter the motivations though, far more animals benefit from wildlife management than then relatively few we kill. In short, if you consider the killing of those animals to be bad, then wildlife management is still a net good. This makes me wonder about public policy. Can a similar logic be applied to other issues? I can think of several where we believe this is so. My question for today is…where do you believe the ‘net good’ logic is most appropriate in government? And if you believe in that logic, is this one of the key components of progressive policy?
An opinion piece from David Horsey at the Los Angeles Times discusses a recent gun death where a 5-year-old Kentucky boy was playing with a rifle he had gotten as a gift and shot and killed his 2-year-old sister.
For many people, it was a revelation that there are companies that manufacture guns specifically for children. The boy in question had a Crickett rifle, a smaller version of an adult weapon designed specifically for little trigger fingers. The guns come in a variety of happy colors, including pink and even swirls.
Some people think giving guns that shoot real bullets to kids is a rather insane idea, but not folks in the gun culture, where it is perfectly normal.
My first impulse here is to say that David Horsey is probably just being sloppy by issuing a broad statement instead of providing some nuance. Or maybe he really does believe kids shouldn’t have access to guns. The article was embedded with a poll asking, “Is it acceptable to teach kids to shoot guns?” The results show 45% yes, 55% no. If Horsey doesn’t think kids should be given guns, he is apparently not alone in that opinion. The problem here is that this represents a view just as extreme as those that believe in full access to all guns for everyone. Continue reading this post…
Some time ago I announced I was switching my party affiliation to Independent. Five months later a sort of personal malaise about politics has settled into my bones and I pay attention to public debates with only a passing interest. The converse of this is that I feel a renewed interest in policy, which was always my first love anyhow. Policy is about execution and (in theory) progress. I like the idea of forward movement and like most men, I arrogantly believe the solution to every problem simply requires careful thought and then application of the correct policy.
In our modern political discourse, there is no shortage of policy proposals. I picture a large warehouse, not unlike that one at the end of the first Indian Jones movie, with hundreds of policies in crates just waiting to be used. Since I am currently without a political party to call home, how interesting it would be to open those crates and try to craft a party with them. So with this in mind I thought I would put on my lab coat and see what I could build out of the pieces. The challenge to this project of course is that the proposals cannot be changed. We have to live with what we find in the crate. So here’s what I’m working with: Continue reading this post…
This time of year, as the days turn warmer and everything begins to become green again, I get an overwhelming urge to spend some time in the woods with friends. Spring is for camping. It’s a time to drag tents and sleeping bags and camp stoves from the basement, load up the car and ignore email for a couple of days. Now that I am older and no longer feel the need to prove myself by carrying everything on my back, I have discovered that my truck will allow me to bring all sorts of luxuries along. An enormous cot with an equally large mattress have made sleeping on the ground a thing of the past. We actually took a television during the NCAA tournament one year. On the trip this weekend I am bringing an electric smoker so we can have pork BBQ for dinner on Saturday night. My days of roughing it are over. Continue reading this post…
In what has become a series of sorts for me here at the League I thought I would put together some rambling thoughts about the work place and what our careers mean. For the first two posts checkout here and here.
Something to See
Recently I finished World War Z (which I loved). There was a section of the book that talked about how the U.S. had to re-tool it’s economy to fight the zombies that had taken over much of the country. Fictional character Arthur Sinclair Jr. is appointed the Director of the newly-formed Department of Strategic Resourses. His task made me think about my own situation:
Sinclair tried to find and use “Tools and Talent”, the skills of the workforce and the means by which they could those skills. Skilled artisans and tradesmen like machinists, gunsmiths, metalworkers, masons, carpenters, and engineers were at an all-time shortage, as most of the refugees were businessmen, accountants, executives, lawyers, representatives, and consultants who all lacked the simple know-how to fix a cracked window. Over 65% percent of the potential workforce was classified as F6, or those with no valued vocation. This required a massive work retraining program, the most radical since WWII. A big challenge to this was transportation mostly due to lack of fuel, which saw a massive comeback of horses and bicycles.
Anyone classified F6 and physically able was used as unskilled labor, i.e. clearing rubble, harvesting crops and digging the numerous graves that winter. Those classified A1, those with war-appropriate skills, became part of the Community Self-Sufficiency Program (CSSP) under the National Reeducation Act, designed to instruct those without vocational skills. This became vitally successful: in the first few months there was a significant drop in requests for government aid. There was some friction however, since most instructors were first-generation immigrants, who knew how to get by with few resources. Many of their former white-collar students resented now having to learn how to fix toilets from people who used to fix their toilets. Continue reading this post…
The post I was going to write was about how I became a Louisville fan but upon proofreading it seemed a rather self-indulgent autobiography. So the short story: I grew up in this city, I am a University of Louisville alumni and Kentucky fans are (mostly) insufferable. Seems the choice was easy. What I find more interesting than my own personal loyalties is the way that athletics will transform people with no real connections into a monolithic group with strong emotional ties. Continue reading this post…
Spoiler Alert: Do not read this post or the comment section if you have not seen the show. Also, for those who have read the comics, please do not discuss plot elements not revealed on the show. Continue reading this post…
Last year I wrote about the opportunity I had to hunt turkeys on a historic farm here in the Bluegrass State. I wish I could say that the season ended in success but I made a few tactical errors that left me with an unfilled tag. Trying to always be positive about my hunting trips, I took a lot of good things from the experience. 50 years from now I will remember a big tom that I battled in a thunderstorm, he getting so close to me that I could see water dripping off his beak, but with a limb in the way I never had a shot. Continue reading this post…
Spoiler Alert: Do not read this post or the comment section if you have not seen the show. Also, for those who have read the comics, please do not discuss plot elements not revealed on the show. Continue reading this post…
A month ago I wrote my last front-page post about my sudden/unexpected career shift and the process of accepting it and moving forward. Since I normally average one front page post per week, the long layoff should be evidence that this event has taken over much of my life. Five weeks after getting the news it is still a big adjustment. Dealing with job anxiety sucks. I mean, takes-over-your-every-waking-thought sucks. As I noted in my last post I have no history of anxiety issues so this has been unchartered territory. To deal with things I have tried a multi-pronged approach which has been helpful in moving forward. Continue reading this post…
dhex 
Jaybird 
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North 
Dale Forguson 
Kazzy 
Will Truman 
