Race and politics
evolvingthoughts | March 19, 2009Johann Friedrich Blumenbach is often criticised for his racial classification and supposed racism, but in this work, published in 1775, he not only argues for the unity of the human species, but in other passages for their general equality of intelligence, contrary to the use his ideas were later put to.
And now we must come more closely to the principal argument of our dissertation, which is concerned with this question; Are men, and have the men of all times and of every race been of one and the same, or clearly of more than one species? A question much discussed in these days, but so far…
evolvingthoughts | February 12, 2009In the Descent of Man, Darwin cites a paper published about 5 years earlier by W. R. Greg, which argues that natural selection is not active among humans (or, as the convention had it then, "Man"). It is most interesting that he does, because Greg is the intellectual father of all those who think that civilisation, and in particular medicine and poverty relief, leads to a degradation of health and virtue. In short, Greg is the father of social "Darwinism". What is Darwin's response? First he spends a dozen or so pages showing that in fact civilised human beings are still subjected to (…
evolvingthoughts | December 2, 2008
The only problem with Queensland, apart from the occasional severe storm, is that they filled it with Queenslanders. Here's a bunch of northern bigots protesting a Muslim school being built on the Gold Coast "because they won't integrate" with Australian society by being, I don't know, Christian or something.
Resident's spokesman Tony Doherty said Muslim schools did not encourage multiculturalism.
"It's segregation, not integration," he said.
"They're not trying to integrate into the rest of society.
"Since we have started protesting against this our churches have been covered in hate-…
evolvingthoughts | November 2, 2008
I haven't seen a lot of commentary about what it will mean if the Republicans go down or if they win the White House and Congress. From half a world away, some reflections beneath the fold.
Republicans win the White House but lose the Senate
This will reinforce the politics of smear and division used by the Republicans against Gore, Kerry and now Obama. Karl Rove's legacy will become a permanent part of the political landscape, further devaluing democracy in the US. However, if they lose the Senate, there will be a continuing deadlock between the representatives of the states and the…
evolvingthoughts | October 24, 2008
I told you so 1: High cost of internet filtering and controls stricter than Iran's, oh and critics bullied.
I told you so 2: Terrorism laws unsafe, court rejects charge of breaking laws that did not exist when the "crime" was done
evolvingthoughts | August 25, 2008
Ghana News asks why there's been no Australian-African summits held? Good question.
Conservation Bytes discusses and links to the classic "Biodiversity Hotspot" paper. It's still a disputed notion.
A forthcoming paper in PNAS (heh. You said "pnas") discusses a technical problem with DNA Barcoding. Apparently the assays pick up pseudogenes that are similar enough to the COXII mt genes to register but which have evolved by drift and random mutation so they give a false positive for a "novel" species.
PLoS Biology has a lovely memoir of Francis Crick, who discovered the structure of DNA…
evolvingthoughts | July 14, 2008
Language Log has a very nice summary of the reasons why some holes are black, and some are white.
evolvingthoughts | July 10, 2008
If a black hole is where common sense is lost, is a white hole where we spew out absurdities? To say so seems like blackmail, which only yellow dogs employ, with a niggardly vocabulary. It's a red flag, I tell you! I'm completely browned off. Don't let the MSM whitewash this.
evolvingthoughts | May 27, 2008
The Scientific Misconduct blog has identified a case of censorship based on fear:
Briefly, a postgraduate student (Rizwaan Sabir) was conducting research (into terrorism). He was arrested after downloading material (related to terrorism) from a US government website. I believe that the material is here - take a look. His Nottingham University supervisors insisted the materials were directly relevant to his research (which is on terrorism). A university administrator and previous student at Nottingham University (Hisham Yezza) printed some of the (publicly available) material for him. Both…
evolvingthoughts | May 11, 2008
From Wiley:
And while we're on the topic...
I went and watched the sermon in which the famous quotes appeared. And you know what? It surprises me that anyone would think them problematic. America really is engaged in a war of payback, and it is indeed reaping what it sowed (as all empires do when their conquered territories become strong enough to challenge them). And Wright was in fact quoting someone lese, an ambassador, when he said that. Moreover he clearly doesn't think Malcolm X was right about religion, but about his analysis of the role of race in America, and I think that is true…
evolvingthoughts | April 4, 2008
Evilunderthesun is a German language blog that recently did two things: totally demolished the "Nazism was caused by Darwin" trope, with generous quoting of mich, and educated me that the word for April fool in German is Aprilschmerz, which I really like.
Tometheus (Prometheus' and Epimetheus' little brother, responsible for bringing egotism from the gods, I think) quotes my list as one of its favourite Aprilschmerzen.
It's good to be appreciated...
evolvingthoughts | March 31, 2008
I have yet to see the film Expelled, because it hasn't come to Australia yet, but I have become absolutely convinced that Ben Stein is correct. Darwinism causes antisemitism. I have therefore conveniently listed all the cases known of this below the fold. I'll stick with those in which Jews were killed or which led up to justifying such killings. I have of course had to correct the Darwinian fake history, which I have done with strikeouts and italic insertions so you all can see how perfidious these Darwinian revisionists are.
38CE: Thousands of Jews were killed in Alexandria, under Darwin…
evolvingthoughts | March 19, 2008
So one of the most inspiring and intelligent political speeches of my time, comparable with Kennedy's, has been delivered while I was either in transit or sleeping (I can't work out which). I have read it, and I have this to say.
Obama treats his hearers as intelligent adults, not to be swayed by the spin and public relations of the right leaning (leaning? OK, right-wing) mainstream media. As a commentator noted at Ed Brayton's blog, the sort of things that Obama's minister was saying are routinely said by the evangelical darlings of the right. Frankie Schaeffer, son of Francis J.…
evolvingthoughts | February 12, 2008
Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was that Abp Rowan Williams did not advocate Sharia law, but instead suggested that secular law should not have a monopoly on regulating human behavior.
As someone once said, of course they would say that. Williams is a religious leader, and wants to have a role in regulating his adherents' behaviour. Tu quoque, he must accept the same…
evolvingthoughts | February 1, 2008
Readers will know that I got very angry about the Haneef Affair, in which a muslim Indian doctor was accused of being a terrorist and deported by the improper abuse of power by the minister for immigration of the previous government [here, here, here, here, here and here].
Now his lawyer has been cleared for "leaking" the Australian Federal Police transcript of interview, which basically showed that Haneef was innocent and the AFP had nothing. And of course the head of the AFP is upset. He wanted the AFP to remain under the rose, free from public scrutiny.
I'll say it again. Whenever a…
evolvingthoughts | January 3, 2008
The previous Australian junta introduced a "citizenship test" for those wanting to become naturalised Aussies. It includes such gems as who Don Bradman was, who wrote a song that isn't even officially our anthem (Waltzing Matilda - Tom Wait's version is way better), and other fluff. About one in eight failed the first round. Similar tests apply in the US, Canada and the UK, I gather.
This raises the question of the title. What must a citizen know?
I hold a somewhat spare view of this topic. A citizen must know only that which all citizens are obligated to know, and for my money, that is…
evolvingthoughts | December 21, 2007
Well the mills of God and the justice system grind exceeding fine, but they sometimes come up with the right conclusion. Haneef has been given back his visa, as was obviously going to happen from the beginning. Ex-minister Kevin Andrews did a bad thing, knowingly, I warrant, and has been shown to be the racist slag he is. I'm glad Haneef has been exonerated - the whole thing has been a farce from the beginning. It was a case of government believing its own lies and propaganda. I hope that Haneef gets compensation for this absurdity.
evolvingthoughts | November 24, 2007
As I watched the total collapse of the conservatives in the federal election, and the landslide of Labor wins, I mused...
Nobody in the media is saying it, but I think there are a number of reasons why the Howard government collapsed. They are: Tony Abbott, Phillip Ruddock, Peter Costello, Brendan Nelson, Amanda Vanstone and Kevin Andrews [Late note: and Julie Bishop]. These ministers have run an extremely virulent form of conservatism, kow towing to religious interests and trying to impose (variously) Catholic, Evangelical and Fundamentalist values on the body politic.
Abbott tried to…