Young Earth Arguments Like Trickle Down Economics Never Go Away

by Gary Berg-Cross

As part of progress it would be nice for some arguments like Flat and Young Earths to go away. Yet, with entities like the Institute for Creation Research one still run into images of cave men riding dinosaurs. The latest one that I bumped into was from the September 15 edition of VOB’s Down To Brass Tacks which featured Dr. Russell Humphreys presented a lecture called Scientific Evidence For A Young World presented on September 10 at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre. He claimed to present 14 pieces of solid scientific evidence for a young world, contradicting the scientific view with a biblical time scale for the origin of planet Earth and its various species within just a few thousand years.

It's all summed up with Dr Humphreys, himself a former atheist, statement: “You can trust The Bible.”
I think one cannot even trust Dr. Humphreys. One can find his arguments on Evidence for a Young World on the Institute for Creation Research site.
Here we find a list of things like:
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.
3. Comets disintegrate too quickly. and
12. Not enough Stone Age skeletons.


One gets the impression that these are new, never answered conundrums but that is far from true. You can see David E. Thomas answers to these going back almost 20 years to , 1998 “Creationist Physicist” Russell D Humphreys and his Questionable “Evidence for a Young World” 

for example on Galaxies wind themselves up too fast (maximum age: a few hundred million years). Humphreys shows off a computer simulation in which a very simple "galaxy," a line of stars about a center point, develops a spiral shape. This spiral then winds up and disappears in just a few hundred million years. In this way, Humphreys claims to "prove" that galaxies can not be billions of years old. In his super-simple simulation, however, the stars are attracted to a "galactic center" - but not to each other! As a result, more distant stars move more slowly about the "galactic center," just as planets do around our Sun. But Humphreys fails to mention that the situation in real galaxies is far more complex than this: for one, real stars attract each other with large gravitational fields. Only the outermost stars of real galaxies have the "Keplerian" orbits he assumes, while the inner stars of a galaxy can move very differently, often almost as a rigid disk. Humphreys dismisses one of the modern theories of spiral formation, "density wave theory," as too complex, but it's really his ideas that are far too simple

On Not enough stone age skeletons (Upper limit for duration of Stone Age: 500 years).

"Perhaps, in a thousand centuries, some of those burial sites might just have been eroded away, or covered with tons of soil or debris. Predators or vandals might have disturbed some of the graves, and subsequent generations of cavemen may have even re-used some of the same traditional burial sites. In any event, it is clear that the number of discovered Stone Age graves does not provide a very accurate "clock" for finding the age of the Earth. "

The arguments, which on first blush seem good critical analysis turn out to be a distraction, a way of not accepting a hard truth about Hebrew Bible claims. It's the type of threat that things like Copernican theory started and the Renaissance picked up on. Hebrew scriptures assumed & asserted that everything had been created in 7 days and designed for the use of man. If the earth plays a much shrunken role as a mere speck in a vast, billion year old universe, mankind is knocked from its center. 

As Jerome Wolf wrote Tycho Brahe in 1575:

 “No attack on Christianity is more dangerous than the infinite size and depth of the universe.” 

 Therefore it has to be denied and evidence has to be fabricated against it and against the scientific spirit which seemed very American to Walt Whitman. 

“I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try 

over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.” 

― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman's Camden Conversations

I'd say that a similar story applies to politically correct, economic theory like Trickle Down. That's an even longer story but a start is   a recent study published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded that, contrary to the principles of “trickle-down” economics (Adding another nail to the coffin of Reaganomics) , an increase in the income share of the wealthiest people actually leads to a decrease in GDP growth.

Remembering Humanist Walt Whitman (& his friend Bob Ingersoll)

By Gary Berg-Cross

It is wonderful to celebrate May 31 as the birthday of poet Walt Whitman (1819-1892).  Like many other non-DC natives (Ingersoll for one & WW was very much a native New Yorker), he spent time here in later life.  No fluke that one of Bethesda's HSs is named after him.

Like Ingersoll there is even a DC tour of his life here (see map at end of article).
Whitman’s DC-time occurred during the Civil War and is notable for many reasons, including the fact that Lincoln served as a kindred spirit and Robert Ingersoll as a friend. To his friend, Horace Traubel, Whitman said of Ingersoll:

“I consider Bob one of the constellations of our time—our country—America—a bright, magnificent constellation.”

It's a bit like what Emerson had said earlier of Whitman. In turn, as one might expect Ingersoll, the orator, could entertain people on Whitman virtues and we have a record of some of this. In his testimonial of Whitman Ingersoll said of his first publication Leaves of Grass:



At this time a young man—he to whom this testimonial is given—he upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters—this man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretense, no fear. The book was as original in form as in thought. All customs were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken—nothing mechanical—no imitation—spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the waves of the sea—nothing mathematical or measured. In everything a touch of chaos—lacking what is called form as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints, suggestions, memories, and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows and constellations.
 

Like Ben Franklin WW spent early years in the print business and publication, including one run by Edgar Allen Poe. (They met in the offices of the Broadway Journal at 304 Broadway Street, New York City, where Poe was editor in 1845.) The result was a liberal & lusty mind like Ben’s that was able to analyze early American life. Leaves of Grass is an American epic that celebrated the common man and captures some of it growing immigrant-worker experience in contemplative poems like "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry":

I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever
so many generations hence,
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt,
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a
crowd,
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the
bright flow, I was refresh'd,

Whitman was by all measures a freethinking Humanist – “There is no God more divine than yourself”. This is evidenced in his first, great work Leaves of Grass as well as his later advice dealing with problems like slavery and women's lack of freedom: “Resist much, obey little” and ““Be curious, not judgmental.” This free voice of the common man had  his classic Leaves poem banned in Boston, as they say, in the 1880.  It was deemed ‘obscene,’ ‘too sensual,’ and ‘shocking’ because of its frank portrayal of sexuality including women's sexuality.

All of this independent spirit is amplified in details in a famous passage copied below, which remains among the best of advice even unto our age:

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem

(Links to books by WW )

Images

WW as an old man: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

Whitman Tour in DC: http://washingtonart.com/beltway/whitman2.html             

Ingersol on Whitman: http://www.robertgreeningersoll.org/?attachment_id=284

Do They Contradict Themselves?

By Gary Berg-Cross

They say that “Mother Nature Never Shaved with Occam’s Razor.” And it is not just physical reality that is complicated.  Humans and their positions are too. Mayor Koch, who died Feb. 1 at 88 of congestive heart failure, was many things and some of them complex, puzzling and perhaps paradoxical.

Early a crusader against Communism and the Vietnam War, he was elected as a Democrat but  later campaigned for George W. Bush. He opposed unions (denouncing transport union sympathizers as “wackos,”) although they helped rescue the city when the teachers' union furnished $150 million from their pension fund to buy Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds. He self described himself as a sane libreral but  became more hawkish over time and berated Obama for timidity in attacking Iran or confronting the Muslim world – “"President Obama is showing weakness to the Muslim world." Ed Koch Reverses Position, Slams Obama's "Weakness" on Muslims

Koch was a known for outrageous, antagonizing and unapologetic pronouncement such as reported by Joseph Berger in the New York Times," needlessly by saying Jews would be "crazy" to vote for Jesse Jackson for president because Jackson could be (like Koch himself)  outspoken, to many people’s annoyance and use outrageous language such as slurring NYC as "Hymietown".

Still I was a bit knocked back to hear a recent Koch clip from the Piers Morgan show where he mused about his secular-religious views this way:

"I'm secular but I believe in God. I believe in the hereafter," he said. "I believe in reward and punishment. And I expect to be rewarded. God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets."

OK, so maybe this is another politician having it both ways and wanting to be loved by both sides. To be fair maybe he is talking about secular government and religion and bounding his secular to what is Caesars' and his religion to what is God's.  It would be nice to draw out such politicians so we know what type of values they have and what type of government we can expect and who they might heed on what issue.


Or it is easy to say that a Mayor Koch was a one-man anomaly: a self-declared secular Jew who harbored a strong belief in God, but he is not alone.  As I noted in “All Mixed Up: Perplexing Hyphenated Identity, 50-50 Concepts and Mixed up Ethnicity,” American has not only an ethnic hyphenated label phenomena like Irish-American, but one that mixes religion and ethnic identity such as the self-label Atheist Jew. Does it make sense to say that one is an atheist Catholic? It doesn’t seem like it. I can be an atheist who is a White, English person, but atheist and Catholic are both in what seems the “religion” dimension with no overlap on the Venn diagram. It can seem confusing since terms for Jewishness and Catholicism seem like religious identity, but they also have ethnic-historical identity too. This can be accepted as part of human complexity and people labeling things on their own terms, but it can make understanding what people, such as declared “secularists” stand for.  In what we variously call the Near or Middle East there is much labeling of secular government, Turkey and Israel come to mind, they are very religious nations too. And what claims to be a secular government can drift over to religious pressures such as the rising influence of ultra-orthodox  in Israel.

 For more confusion and having it your own way like Mr. Koch see Can a secular humanist believe in a god?

I guess some people can think this way, but it seems like they are floating in some see of definitional relativism that relies on the rest of us to tolerate their having it their way. Still I have some concerns that having it both ways without a better understanding leads to situations such as we have on the debt, deficit & economy.  Conservatives agitate for a cut in government spending to handle the "debt problem."  But this hurts the economy and so they can complain about slow job recovery.  If you stimulate job growth with spending they can complain it increases the debt.  It's one equation with 2 unknowns and a guaranteed complaint. Sometimes this hyphenated view of cultural identity (secular) or religious identity seems like that type of variable equation that can flip back an forth as needed.  The result may be confusion..at least in the hands of people not trying to understand or pursue a clear definition of secular in a world of religious cultures.

Or perhaps they are more in the spirit of Walt Whitman in his Song for Myself:

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself.....

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. "